This Love
by xmjcx
Summary: Bethyl biker gang AU. "If Merle Dixon is trouble spelt with a capital 'T', then Beth Greene honestly has no idea where to even begin with his younger brother, Daryl." Rated M.
1. Chapter 1

If Merle Dixon is trouble spelt with a capital 'T', then Beth Greene honestly does not know where to even begin when it comes to his younger brother, Daryl.

Word about the pair of them has, over the last twenty years or so that she has lived with her family in this town, reached her ears on quite a number of occasions. Although Beth admittedly doesn't know all that much about the brothers, she feels as though she still somehow knows _enough._

And it's strange, because until this point in time, Beth has never actually met either one of the Dixon brother's before. Goodness, she's never actually even _seen_ the younger of the two in the flesh before - heard things; yes, of course, and had seen the odd picture here and there, but she has never actually looked at him in person with her own two eyes. There has been the odd occasion where the older one - Merle - had entered the little bakery that she worked at part-time in the centre of town alongside her studies, but that had only ever been briefly, and it had only ever been whenever he had been with a woman (never the same woman twice, though).

Come to think of it, he never actually appeared to purchase any of the products for himself, either.

Still, though, Beth just happens to know things about the two of them from general gossip and rumours that used to spin around her school and now spin around her work, too. It isn't as though the subject itself has ever actually peaked her interest, really. After all, it seems as though the majority of the members of the gang that both of the brother's run are much older than her and her peers, anyway; what, with Merle being somewhere between the age of forty and fifty and Daryl possibly being in his late twenties, but most likely early thirties.

It's just not her type of scene; not her crowd, not her idea of fun, and so even when all of her friends have been whispering and giggling about the 'club', as they call it, Beth's just never really cared. And yet, she knows enough about them - knows probably as much as the rest of the people in this small town do - to feel as though she should have at least met them before.

What she has been told about the brothers and the gang - or 'club' - itself isn't anything concrete, or set in stone, or even definitely true (which is the trouble with small towns - you never know what to believe).

But by now, Beth knows that the two of them are part of a large enough biker gang that practically runs this small Georgia town. Merle is known as being the President and Daryl is his right-hand man (or at least something along those vague lines, anyway, because the blonde won't pretend that she even has the slightest clue about how these sorts of things work, except from what she has seen on TV-shows and movies).

She also knows that they are both currently employed at the only garage in town (because really, who would honestly want to open up a rival business against a gang that is ran by Merle Dixon?) along with the rest of the members of their 'crew' - _brothers,_ she's heard that they call each other.

 _Family._

And - despite the fact that she has never met either one of them before - Beth knows that they are bad news. (Young and perhaps slightly naive, Beth refuses to honestly believe that the brothers are bad _people,_ because she cannot make that judgement without knowing them personally; but she knows that they are bad _news._ )

But even so, none of this prior knowledge that she has acquired about the brothers and their club stops her from looking their way now, as she walks through the dimly-lit dive bar that she would never even offer a second glance to in any other circumstance bar this one. Her light blue eyes are wider than usual as she peers around the narrow space that seems to drag on and on and on in search for her father, Hershel, who - according to the bartender who called her home phone (he found it in the directory, apparently) - is in a bad way and needs to be taken home immediately.

The actual bar table is long and wide and Beth spots her father as soon as she catches sight of it. He's perched on one of the long stools, hunched over a glass - the clear liquid in it, she presumes, is water, not vodka - with a solemn expression on his face. Both of the seats that are placed on either side of him are empty and, as difficult as this is for Beth every time that she has to do this _anyway,_ the sight of that causes her to hurt a little bit more because for the first time in a long time, she comes to realise just how truly lonely her father is.

In the past, circumstances in their lives have been very different, to say the least. Hershel Greene is a different sort of drunk every time that he gets drunk, and although he's never once been violent towards her, Beth knows that he has been in the past - to other people, that is. Usually, her father is sat with one or two friends - laughing and slurring and behaving more like a young man of her own age as opposed to the older man (who is approaching retirement) that he actually is, pouting when his youngest daughter comes to drag him away from the stool at the bar.

But tonight, it isn't like that at all. Tonight, the veterinarian looks so sad and so _broken_ that it feels as though Beth's own heart has broken into pieces right inside of her chest. Standing completely still, just a few steps away from him (but not near close enough so that he has registered her presence or has even recognised her face), Beth feels overcome with the sudden urge to burst into tears, and she cannot help but to curse herself for being so soft to her daddy.

A loud noise distracts her and causes her to flinch, and her wide blue eyes momentarily shoot away from her father, and Beth turns directly towards the group of men who are making a rather big fuss and a hell of a lot of noise from where they are sitting at the opposite side of the bar. The bartender who is serving them - a woman with a ridiculously large cleavage and cropped pigtails - is obviously fighting a smile whilst she concentrates on pouring their drinks, evidently pleased (well, at least a little bit, anyway) with the attention that these men are providing her with.

All of the men - there must be about eight or nine, at least; if not a couple more - are wearing sleeveless leather vests that have a huge symbol stitched onto the back. In the poor light and the general fogginess that seems to have settled inside of this bar, Beth can't really make out the symbol; but she's seen it (and some of these men) enough times to know what it is, who they are, what club they belong to.

Before she can even stop herself from staring at them, Beth _feels_ a set of eyes on her. Unable to stop herself, she turns her head towards the right to look in his direction, and as she stands there - just a few inches away from where her father is sat - Beth knows that the man who is staring directly at her is wondering what on earth someone like her is doing standing in a place like this.

 _Beth knows it because she has honestly been debating the question herself._

Beth's eyes meet with his, and there they stay, and the first coherent thought that springs to mind is that they are the most beautiful shade of blue she's ever seen.

Whilst it's impossible for her to know for sure, Beth cannot shake the feeling that this man is _him._ And if this was a fictional story then there is no doubt in her mind that right now, her breath would catch in her throat and her heart would cease in its beating (if only for a fraction of a second) the very moment that their eyes met from across the expanse of space between them.

Beth knows it would be that way because she can _feel_ the electricity that is buzzing between them; that is flickering and twitching and sparking as he looks at her and she looks at him.

It's Daryl, of course - the younger of the two Dixon brother's. If Beth really needed to clarify her guess then she would only have to look down at his vest to see the badge stitched upon it, the one that declares him to be vice-president of the club he and his 'brother's' seem to love so much.

But Beth doesn't have to do that because she just _knows._ Mostly because she remembers the gossip and the stories and the whispered words said in a longing, flustered tone about how _handsome_ and how _rugged_ and how _gorgeous_ that he was. Even though Beth had never once seen him for herself, after seeing Merle; she had always just assumed that her friends and her peers were completely out of their minds to even think that he was remotely attractive. Figured that he would probably be the spitting image of his older brother (minus a few years, of course), and if she was being honest, Beth had never really understood the fuss behind Merle Dixon, either.

But now that she's here and now that she's really actually looking at him, Beth understands it.

 _Oh._

It all makes sense now, and even though this moment seems to be carrying on for hours, it has only been a mere few seconds that the two of them have been looking at each other. It's a challenge, a daring game where neither seems to want to look away (and right now, it seems as though Daryl Dixon just might be as equally stubborn as her) and Beth refuses to back down, refuses to give in.

The look that he offers her is darker now, and the man tilts his head down ever so slightly - as though his change in angle might make him appear more intimidating, might force her to swallow down her pride and quickly scurry away.

Maybe he genuinely thinks that it will.

But it doesn't.

So Beth Greene keeps staring right at him; never even blinking, never even moving an inch.

After a second or two more, a hand appears on one of his broad shoulders; and Beth finally blinks at the sight of Daryl turning away from her to face the person who is responsible for clapping him on the back. Beth's light blue eyes take in everything around her and she notes that it's a tall, tanned man who she has definitely seen roaming around before - Caesar, she's sure that he's called - and he's leaning down now to say something into Daryl's ear, probably struggling to be heard over the music that's humming in the background of this dingy place.

When Daryl's eyes drift back towards where she is still stood - even now, frozen to the spot - she still finds his gaze to be intense and powerful, but the spell that had been put on her by his eyes just moments before is now broken and she no longer feels as though everything and everyone around them is frozen in time. From the corner of her eyes, she can see the way in which the tall man is still talking in his ear, and she notices the way in which Daryl jerkily nods his head in understanding.

It is then that Beth moves. Looking away from the man whom she is confident has to be Daryl Dixon, she approaches her father and places a gentle hand on his shoulder, not wanting to startle or upset the older man as she does so. Slowly, her father lifts his head, and when she begins to sob at the sight of her, Beth tries her best to stay strong.

 _She doesn't cry any more._

Not now that her mama is gone.

The music is still humming in the background of the bar but suddenly, Beth feels a shift in the air around her; and she doesn't have to look in any particular direction to know that near enough everyone in the vicinity is now looking straight at her. It must be a strange sight - Beth, just a tiny slip of a thing, and her father, the complete opposite - and as she wraps an arm around his waist, Hershel instinctively heaves one of his over her shoulders, his bottom lip wobbling along with his legs.

Knowing that everyone is staring at them both just makes her feel angry. Not necessarily bitter or even furious, but it does make her feel angry, and Beth just wants to grunt and kick and shout and yell at them all to look away from her, to tell the crowd that this isn't some sort of show that they have tickets to watch.

But she doesn't do that.

Instead, Beth allows them to watch her as she struggles to walk Hershel Greene out of the dive bar that he had basically been kicked out of. And as she is listening to her father whine about her and how he misses her mother and how he's _so sorry, Bethy;_ Beth finds herself looking up once more, almost craning her neck, in an attempt to meet his eyes.

And, of course, she does.

She finds that he's looking right at her, still. There's no smirk on his face, no sense of surprise or amusement or judgement there like there is on everyone else in the bar. His expression is basically blank, but it doesn't offend her, and it isn't off-putting. Instead, it makes her feel appreciative; makes her feel _hopeful,_ and causes her to think that actually, this man might just be very, very different to the stories that she has heard.

And Beth never believed that Daryl Dixon was a bad person. _Bad news,_ of course, but a bad _person -_ no. How could she have thought something so powerful about a man that she had never met before?

The drive home is mostly a blur, and Beth once again struggles to walk her father up the steps of the farmhouse. Instead of worrying herself over taking him upstairs to bed, Beth guides him towards the living room and watches as he plops himself down onto one of the couches, murmuring nonsense as he closes his bright blue eyes.

A sad smile drifts over her face as she moves his head so that it is tilted to one side. Just in case he is sick in his sleep, she thinks - just to make sure that he doesn't choke, if that was to happen.

(It wouldn't be the first time).

Not even bothering to remove her clothes, Beth falls into her bed with a huff and a sigh. Her head nuzzles against the pillow as her mind helplessly wonders about the handsome man she has just encountered at the bar. Questions begin to form in her mind that have never been there before; questions that have never had any need or want to be there before, questions that don't really have any _right_ to be there, either.

Questions like _is he with anyone?_ and _is he in love with someone?_

That night, Beth Greene dreams of Daryl Dixon - a man who she has briefly seen, but never even spoken to. She dreams of his deep blue eyes that hold her gaze so intensely; about his biceps that seem impossibly large, about his scruffy stubble and his too-long hair and his lips and his _everything._ And when she finally wakes up with a throbbing heat between her legs and a flush in her cheeks, Beth Greene realises that last night was the best nights sleep that she has had in a long, long time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you so much to the response I got from the last chapter! Every time I start a new story, it seems as though more and more people are commenting and leaving reviews but this seems to have really hit off with a lot of you and I'm really happy about it. So thank you so much for motivating me to continue with this and for your lovely words of support!**

 **I don't have a set-in-stone plan for this story just yet as I wasn't even sure I was going to carry it on as I didn't know whether anyone would even like it, but the proper interactions between these two will begin from the next chapter whilst this is quite similar to the previous chapter in terms of build-up.**

* * *

It happens to be nine days until Beth Greene manages to catch another glimpse of Daryl Dixon.

(Not that she's counting, of course.)

That's precisely how long that it takes her father to give into his vice and truly cave into his sorrow; and although Beth is disappointed by this - because honestly, how could she not be? - this is still exactly what she had been expecting from him. There had been a time, shortly after Annette's sudden passing (a heart attack, the doctors had told them all) when her father's seemingly genuine promises about how he would never drink again and how he would change had actually _meant_ something to her.

But now, even though a small part of her had naively been hoping that he had meant what it was that he said this time around, Beth had mostly been expecting this relapse.

There had been a part of the blonde that had expected her father to be at this bar once again, too. Hershel Greene was a man of habit if nothing else, and though the last occasion had been the first time (that Beth knew of) that he had been in this bar that was known for being frequented by the towns _rougher_ inhabitants, she had still been unable to shake the feeling that this is exactly where she would find him the next time that he broke.

It was also almost to be expected that Daryl Dixon and his older brother (along with the rest of their gang) would be here at this bar, too. Over the course of the last nine days, those deep blue eyes of his had (mostly) wormed their way out of her conscious mind and the only time that she ever saw them now was when they haunted her in her dreams. Try as she might, Beth just couldn't shake the look of them every time that she closed her eyes; and although it rationally made absolutely no sense for this _stranger_ to have rooted himself deeply inside of her imagination, that was exactly what he had done.

Goodness, it wasn't as though Beth could just _stop_ thinking about him.

In all honesty, Beth genuinely had not been expecting to see him so soon - because that was just her luck, just the way that her life coasted by - yet there he was, sat in the same spot that he had been in the very first time that she saw him.

There had been a difference in this evening, though; even if it had only been slight. The woman who had been behind the bar last time, though - the brunette with the low pigtails - was nowhere to be seen, and in her place stood Carol Peltier. It wasn't as though Beth was on friendly terms with the older woman, but she had seen her around town every now and then, and plus Carol had introduced herself over the phone when she had called the Greene farm around half an hour before.

Instead of being short and straight to the point like the woman on the last occasion had been, Carol had been softly spoken and more than kind enough as she gently informed Beth that she had found her home telephone number pinned up to the notice board alongside Hershel's name.

The thought was comforting, at first - the idea that the woman who had worked here last week had been kind enough to do something so small, yet still helpful. But then, after a brief while, sadness dawned upon her and Beth couldn't help but feel down about the fact that the other woman had clearly anticipated the fact that Hershel's would be returning to the bar again, no doubt getting himself into a similar state as the last time.

It isn't as though Beth can blame the other woman for believing that her father would return and that his behaviour would be of a similar standard. After all, Beth believed it herself, too. But nonetheless, the realisation of that fact makes Beth feel _sad._

It makes her upset that someone else - someone who doesn't even know this man, what he's been through or what has happened in his life - has such little faith in his self-control. Not for the first time in the last twelve or so months, Beth wishes with all of her might that her father would just stop behaving like this and finally pull himself together.

Over the phone, Carol had politely explained that whilst her father wasn't necessarily causing any trouble at the bar, he did seem to be in a very bad place and on the most part was quite upset and generally inconsolable.

That was yet another factor in this story of her evening that Beth had been expecting, too. And as much as the blonde doesn't want to have to do this - and it doesn't make her feel guilty, either, because she cannot think of any other person on this entire planet who would actually _want_ to do this - she quickly reassured Carol that she would be down at the bar to collect her father as soon as she possibly could.

And yes, she's a little bit bitter as she jumps into the truck that her parents bought for her on her eighteenth birthday. She's bitter because she knows that this situation that she is in isn't right and it's anything but fair, either. As if losing her mother wasn't enough...

Now, Beth Greene is just twenty years old - still months away from turning twenty one - and somehow, she has found herself feeling more like a parent than a child.

The truck is parked clumsily around the side of the bar (placed next to a long row of motorcycles that she tries her best not to think too much about), and Beth blames her sloppy parking on the fact that she doesn't plan on being inside of the place any longer than necessary. The bar itself is named Terminus; and just the name along makes her feel uneasy, uncomfortable.

There is a man who stands on the entrance door to the bar, and Beth recognises him easily. His name is Tyreese; and Beth knows him well because he is the older brother of one of her close friends, Sasha. Although he looks intimidating at first glance - what, as he towers over six foot tall with dark skin and a broad physique - Tyreese is actually one of the nicest men that Beth has ever met in her life, and he allows her entry to the bar as easily as he did nine days before, not really seeming to give it a second thought as he does.

As she squeezes through the small entry way to the bar, Tyreese flashes her a sympathetic smile. Beth tries her best to just brush it off and not over-think it; trying to convince herself that it must just be how Tyreese smiles at everyone, that he doesn't actually mean anything by it.

(But Beth has known this man since she was thirteen years old, and she knows that it isn't how Tyreese smiles at everyone, knows that he means something by it in the same way that she knows just how much she doesn't want anybody's sympathy).

The bar seems to be much busier than it was the last time that she briefly visited it, and Beth realises in that exact moment that tonight is a Saturday. Bodies are everywhere, making it practically impossible for her to worm her way over to the main bar where she just _knows_ that her father will be.

At the sight of all of the people inside of this bar - none of them her age, but still she would consider them to still be quite youthful - it finally dawns upon Beth that the roles here should most definitely be reversed, and just the thought of it makes her groan inwardly. If social norms are anything for anyone to go by, then it should really be Beth who is currently off her face drunk at a run-down, shoddy bar - not her sixty odd year old father.

But then again, after everything that she has seen and experienced in the last year since her mother passed away, Beth has concluded that she never wants to even taste a drop of alcohol.

 _Ever._

It's a short few minutes later when Beth is close enough to the main bar to actually see where her father is sat, and she spots Carol behind the bar, pouring a beer - presumably _not_ to give to Hershel - and offering the older man a few concerned glances as she does so. Stubborn and proud as she is, Beth feels a little bit easier and more relaxed knowing that Carol actually seems to want to make sure that her father is alright.

With a soft sigh, Beth once again pushes herself through the crowd of people so that she can step closer towards her father, ignoring the curious side of her that is currently battling over why on earth Carol would possibly need to work here when she already works during the day at the traditional All-American Diner on the outskirts of town...

It is then that the overwhelming feeling of someone's eyes on her practically swallows Beth whole; and the blonde cannot help but be taken over by a strange sense of deja-vu. Immediately, everything comes together in her mind; the way in which she had been standing her, completely still, in near enough the exact same spot (give or take a few inches) of the bar that she had been nine days ago, and the feel of someone staring right at her pulled her away from where she had been concentrating on her father.

It has happened in the exact same way once again, and so without any more hesitation, Beth lifts her light blue eyes in order to scan over the expanse of the bar - which is admittedly different because it's much more crowded this time - but she doesn't try to pretend to herself that she doesn't know it is that she is looking for across the way.

(Who it is that she is _hoping_ for, constantly.)

Of course, it's dark and it's smokey in the bar, meaning that Beth doesn't actually have a very clear view of him. But from where she is standing, Daryl Dixon's eyes seem to be just as much of an intense shade of blue as they were when she saw them for the first time nine days ago.

It makes sense that his eyes are the same colour, this she knows; but there had been a part of her that had thought to herself that perhaps her imagination had just gone into over-drive as she thought on about him. Gradually, Beth had come to accept the fact that she had probably glorified him and allowed her mind to turn him into something that he really just wasn't -

\- but _oh,_ as he sits there on that same bar stood in that same leather vest, beer bottle grasped loosely in one of his large hands and his burning eyes locked on nothing else but _her,_ Beth welcomes with open arms the fact that she had most definitely not given this man more credit than he deserved in any way, shape or form.

Goodness, Daryl Dixon just happens to be utter perfection.

And Beth remembers in that moment what she thought about his brother; about how Merle Dixon is anything but trouble, and how she didn't know where on earth to even begin with Daryl. But now, as she looks straight into his deep eyes and takes in _all_ of him - from the scruff of stubble on his jaw to his too-long hair, from his tanned, scraped skin to his exposed muscular arms - Beth comes to the conclusion that this man is gloriously sinful.

It's not love at first sight, that she knows. Beth has never believed in that, anyway; not considering the fact that her mama and her daddy were both married and in love once before they found each other, not considering the fact that she couldn't possibly be in love with someone that she had never even had a conversation with. But still; it's most definitely lust - a lust that consumes her, inwards and outwards - and god, does she _want_ him.

In all truthfulness, Beth Greene has actually never _wanted_ a man before. Not in this context, anyway; not in a purely sexual manner that strikes her down through the core, in a way that leaves her helplessly dreaming of a stranger for the last nine days, in a way that has her throbbing and hot and desperate with desire. Absolutely all of him is so breathtaking, but it's his eyes that seem to pull her in every time, and since there's no Caesar here to distract him this time (at least, not that she knows of, anyway), Beth honestly has a feeling that they'll be staring at each other like this all night.

Not much runs through her mind in the seconds that follow as they look at one another. Instead, all that is inside of her head is silence; the feel of her heart pumping loudly against her chest with pure and utter excitement is just so overwhelming that Beth really can't figure out a way to think anything at all.

Once again, the spell is broken - something else that was really to be expected - when Carol calls out her name.

The music in the bar is quite loud, but at this point Beth is standing close enough to the woman to be able to hear her, and it's obvious that she can, too; so ignoring her is really out of the question. Frustrated, Beth snaps her head round in Carol's direction; her eyes wide and her lips parted to form a small 'o', a blush rising in her cheeks as she looks the older woman straight in the eyes.

In all honesty, Carol appears to be completely unaware of the fact that Beth and Daryl had been staring at each other so intensely, and she ushers the blonde over with a welcoming smile and a wave of her hand. Her body works on auto-pilot and immediately moves towards the counter at the bar and then towards where her father is sat, and Beth thanks Carol - making sure to hand her a ten dollar bill (for her trouble, she says) - before she wraps both of her slender arms around Hershel's middle and helps him to stand up.

* * *

Practice makes perfect, and by now, Beth honestly believes that she has mastered the art of helping her drunken father walk to wherever it is that she needs him to go. The only reason that tonight takes her any longer to help him to reach the truck is because of where she parked it, and as soon as a cool breeze hits the pair of them in the face, Beth can't help but wish that she had just pulled the truck up directly outside of the bar.

Once her father is safely strapped into the passenger seat at the front - which is a battle in itself, because Hershel doesn't actually _want_ to be babied by his twenty year old daughter now that he is sitting in the car - Beth hops out and shuts the door behind her. There is still a slight chill in the air that doesn't seem to want to leave, but it doesn't make Beth feel uncomfortable.

Letting out a gentle sigh, Beth takes a moment to herself to just _breathe._ Inhaling through her nose and fluttering her eyelids shut, Beth counts from one to ten in her head, blocking out everything else as it tries to make its way through. When Beth re-opens her eyes, she notices that her father has rested his forehead against the door window and is seemingly fast asleep. It's barely been one minute since she shut the door and he's already drooling and snoring and Beth wishes to herself that she could fall asleep that quickly, too.

Instead, it always seems as though she struggles to get any sleep at all at night.

The sound of something shuffling behind her has Beth practically jumping out of her skin in fright, and the blonde spins around quickly to see what it was that has disturbed her. Given the fact that the bar is located quite close to an area of woodland, Beth would have happily put money on the idea of finding that it was some sort of lost and/or scared animal sat staring up at her at that moment in time.

But instead of a raccoon or a doe or a possum, Beth finds Daryl Dixon's blue eyes.

"Oh!"

The word comes flying from her mouth before Beth even realises what she's doing, and although she is slightly embarrassed about how jumpy she was just behaving, she acknowledges the fact that nobody - not even him - can really blame her. Just because it's a small town that they live in doesn't mean that there aren't bad people around and that you shouldn't always be careful; and although Beth always tries her best to have faith in every person that she meets, she also knows that it's foolish to be naive around strangers.

Not everyone you meet should be trusted, especially when you are a twenty year old girl hovering around a run-down bar like this one.

Taking a small step backwards (although Beth has to admit the fact that Daryl wasn't really all that close to her in the first place, to be honest), Daryl seems to be just as surprised as Beth is at their encounter. There have been times in the past where something like this has happened to her before with other men - or, she should say boys, really - and Beth has had a feeling that those particular guys had been doing that on purpose. But right now, it doesn't seem as though Daryl Dixon had any intention of bumping into her.

If he had even given it a second thought then perhaps he had imagined that Beth would have already left the parking lot by now, or maybe he would have anticipated her to have parked somewhere other than right next to this long line of motorcycle's. But either way, Beth can tell just by the small ounce of surprise on Daryl's features that he did not think that Beth would be here right now.

Part of her hopes that he brings up the fact that he was basically undressing her with his eyes inside of the bar, but he doesn't. Instead, he grunts out a quick apology - a short and simple _sorry_ \- and holds up his hands, as if trying to calm her down; as if she was angry or annoyed or enraged by his presence. Her first thought comes from surprise at just how rough and deep and low his voice is. It's scratchy and just so _him_ that Beth almost wants to grin, and it's also hoarse in a way that makes her want to shiver.

(Not because she's feeling cold, though. If anything, Beth Greene is suddenly feeling much, much warmer.)

After an awkward stretch of silence passes between the two of them, Beth shakes her head from side to side and grips the keys to the truck a little bit tighter in her first. "No," she stutters out, feeling a little bit nervous and quite flustered now that she actually feels the need to speak to him. Looking at him from across the way is one thing, but _talking_ to him?

This is _Daryl Dixon,_ for crying out loud. It's hardly someone that she ever imagined herself speaking to, and right now, all she wants to do is make herself _not_ look like a babbling idiot.

"Don't apologise," Beth says, a genuine smile lighting up her face. "It's fine."

From where he stands opposite her, Daryl studies Beth for a good few seconds before he finally jerks his head in a nod. At his movement, Beth's shoulders relax, yet her heart race begins to accelerate when she notices him visibly swallow, and as he does so Beth finds herself to be absolutely mesmerised by the way in which his Adam's apple bobs up and down.

The urge to press her lips against his tanned neck is almost completely overwhelming, and Beth honestly doesn't know what has come over her.

(She does: _him._ )

"I better get goin'," Beth says, a little laugh present in her tone as she awkwardly spits the words out. Daryl is now looking at her with squinted eyes as though he is trying to figure something out, and the sight of him visually analysing her makes Beth feel a little bit uncertain now. It isn't as though the older man can read her thoughts, this she knows; but there is something about the way in which he is looking at her that has Beth feeling as though Daryl suddenly knows every detail about all of the dreams and fantasies she has had about him over the course of the last nine days.

As she stands there in the middle of the parking lot to Terminus, Beth finally recognises just how out of place she must looks. In her worn blue jeans and her mucked up black and white converse, Beth knows that she must be the complete opposite of the women that a man like Daryl Dixon usually finds himself interacting with.

And still, he offers her the slightest of smiles as he nods at her again. "Alright," Daryl says, his voice still low and thick and rough, and Beth resists the urge to shiver for the second time now.

Not really knowing what else to do, Beth slowly makes her way around the truck, resisting the urge to look back over her shoulder and see what it is that Daryl is doing. She supposes that he must be standing still and waiting for her to leave, because all that she can hear is the low hum of music and the sound of laughter in the distance. Beth cannot hear the sound of gravel under boots or the noise of a rumbling bike engine starting up.

Once she has sat herself down in her seat and clicked her seat belt into place, Beth turns her head and looks out of the rear view mirror, watching the way Daryl stands at the edge of what she presumes is his bike. He is staring straight at the truck and although Beth knows that the man won't be able to see anything of her from where he is stood, she still cannot help but feel as though he is looking right at her - watching her every move - as he stands there, waiting.

With a long, drawn-out sigh, Beth turns her key in the ignition and starts up the truck, resisting the urge to look back at Daryl Dixon in the mirror once again until she is moving to pull out of the parking lot. But he isn't behind her any longer and instead is by the side of her, and before Beth can even react to his sudden closeness, Daryl is gone once again - driving off down the road on his bike in the opposite direction to the Greene farm, his exhaust popping loudly as he disappears into the darkness of the night.

When she collapses into bed, Beth finds herself dreaming of Daryl once again. This time, though, she is able to imagine his voice, too - the things that he would say to her, the words that he would murmur in her ear and against her skin. This time, when Beth wakes up in the middle of the night with a loud gasp and an almost painful throbbing sensation between her legs, she cannot help but to slip her hand down into her shorts and finish off what her imagination has started.

And as Beth works herself up incredibly close to her breaking point, she does so imagining that it's Daryl Dixon's fingers rubbing against her clit instead of her own, and when she finally comes, it is his name that spills from her lips.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading and please review to let me know what you think!**

 **I love hearing from you all and I've just sort of impulsively gone off with this story as the idea suddenly came to me; so any suggestions would be much appreciated!**


	3. Chapter 3

**You know, on the whole, this story kind of feels a little bit angsty; so I'm sorry if you don't really like that sort of stuff. I can only read angsty stories when there's a good few chapters as I hate the wait/build up so I will try my best to make it worth your while! I've actually not planned any of this story, I just keep sitting down and the chapter just happens so I'm going to try and go with that for as long as I possibly can. I do have a general plot idea in my head and right now, I'm thinking that this story will be between fifteen and twenty chapters; but for anyone who has read my other Bethyl fics then you know exactly what I'm like and that it will most likely be a bit longer than that.**

 **A few people have requested Daryl's POV so if that's something that quite a few of you readers want then I'll give it a go for the next chapter. I definitely am NOT as confident writing from his POV as I am from Beth's so I can't promise anything but if it's something everyone would like to see then I'll give it my best shot :-)**

* * *

The dreams of the youngest Dixon brother never did start out with innocent intentions - not that Beth can be blamed for that, of course, as it was all in her unconscious mind - but they are now becoming much, much more intense and powerful, staying with her when she wakes up and haunting her mind for the duration of the day. It's impossible to concentrate on her studies when all that she can see every time she closes her eyes is his face, and these dreams in general just seem to be developing in ways that make Beth Greene blush harder than she thinks she has ever done before.

And these dreams might shock her in more ways than one, and although she has really tried not to put herself down about it, Beth cannot help but to question herself as she thinks on about it all (because does she really like the idea of him _yanking_ on her hair and would she actually _want_ him to do something like that to her if the opportunity presented itself?). As a whole, these dark dreams just seem to be completely set on torturing her with desire; making her feel as though all that she really wants to do is cry out into the darkness of her bedroom, to shout as loudly as she possibly can in frustration on the off chance that perhaps he will hear her and understand, that perhaps he will come and make it all better.

But Beth just can't do that. It's not real, she knows, and it's all in her head - these foggy ideas that he'll come and _save_ her, installed in her brain from when she was just a young girl. More than anything, Beth holds back on shouting and screaming as loud as she can because she knows that her father will hear her from his bedroom down the hall, and (on the off chance that he's actually sober) will most likely panic at the sound. The last thing that Beth really wants to do is to disturb Hershel; to make the old veterinarian worry about his sexually frustrated daughter when he already has enough on his plate to worry about.

So Beth settles for growling as loudly as she possibly can into her pillow, her shoulders shaking as she does so. A few weeks ago, had she been able to see herself now, then Beth would have thought that she had lost her mind - gone psychotic and broken down. But in all honesty, Beth actually feels a little bit better for it (once she can't carry on any longer because she actually needs to take a breath before she suffocates herself) and the muscles in her shoulders don't feel quite so tense any more.

But that throbbing ache that decided to permanently settle itself in between her legs over two weeks ago is actually bordering on _painful_ now, and no matter how many times Beth attempts - and seemingly succeeds, for a very short while - to satisfy herself, things just seem to have a way of going from bad to worse. It is beginning to get to the point where she feels as though her body is seriously _punishing_ her for attempting to settle down the burning that his deep blue eyes sparked off, and in her mind she is reaching a place where she feels as though the only way that she can quell this fire is to have him for herself.

And it's all well and good thinking that way, except, of course, for the small fact that Beth _can't_ have him.

She can't because she doesn't even know the man, has only shared some longing looks - that honestly might not have even been longing on his part - and a thirty second conversation with him.

(But that almost makes it worse because now she knows his voice, and now instead of just grunts and gasps she can imagine all of the things that he would say to her and _how_ he would say them, too, and those imagined words haunt her just much as the images do).

She can't because she doubts that he would even want her if he was given the chance.

(Because _look at her;_ with her tiny fame - little over five foot tall - and her small breasts and her baby face that makes her look little over seventeen, not almost twenty one).

She can't because she is Beth Greene and she's a _good girl_ and he's - well, he's _Daryl Dixon._

With a sigh, Beth throws herself backwards on her bed and resists the urge to burst into tears, simply out of frustration. This man has absolutely no idea what he has done to her - or maybe he does, and that would make him so terribly bad that it would probably turn her on more - and as her frustration bubbles down so that she's no longer as angry as she was when the image of his white teeth sinking into the skin of her neck and drawing blood woke her up, Beth wonders over whether or not she regrets ever looking at Daryl in the first place.

(She doesn't).

* * *

When Beth's truck brakes down precisely twenty four days after the first night that she had picked her father up at the bar, she groans loudly from where she is sat behind the wheel. Beth has always been a religious person - goodness, it would have been practically impossible for her not to be after the upbringing that she has had - but she believes in karma and positive energy and the universe, too; and right now, Beth can't help but believe that this is not an act of God, but is instead an act of the universe.

For some reason, she honestly thinks that the universe really has it out for her at the minute.

There's smoke (and a _lot_ of it) oozing from the hood of the truck, and Beth doesn't need her daddy here with her right now to let her know that something is obviously _very_ wrong with her car. A long, heavy sigh escapes from her lips as she takes a moment to just stare out of the windscreen and at the smoke that is rapidly getting thicker in the air. Her mind is buzzing with what she can only imagine is nerves as Beth clambers out of the drivers side door and moves herself so that she can pull out her cell phone from where it is located in the back pocket of her dark skinny blue jeans.

A quick search on Google (just because she's from some little old town in Georgia doesn't mean that they don't have the internet) is all it takes for Beth to find the phone number for the only garage in town. It's silly to be so worked up about a phone call, that she knows, but rational thinking doesn't seem to be doing anything to calm down her heart, which is currently pounding as hard as it possibly can against her chest.

As the number dials, Beth worries her bottom lip with her teeth in order to not start biting at her finger nails; which is a bad habit that her mama always hated, especially when she caught her daughter's at it. Annette Greene was generally quite pleasant and easy going, but it didn't stop her from coating her children's nails in a bitter-tasting polish in an attempt to get them to stop biting their nails whenever they got nervous.

(The polish didn't work for Beth and her older sister Maggie in the same way that it did for Shawn, and her daddy always said it was because Greene girls were the most stubborn things around.)

When the line is eventually picked up on the other side, it isn't _his_ voice that greets her, and simultaneously Beth feels both relief and disappointment gather in her chest. Neither emotion seems to be outweighing the other at the minute and instead they are gently balancing on a scale, so the blonde can't really be too sure whether or not she would have rather it been Daryl who answered the phone, or whether she is just happy that it was someone called Joe who picked up instead.

The arguments on either side of her answer to that question (because _yes,_ she so desperately wanted it to be him and _no,_ she would have just frozen up and had no idea what to say) seem to be endless. But Beth knows just from glimpsing at her smoking truck that she will most likely be required to pay a visit to the garage to day, so if she really did wish that it would have been him who answered the phone then Beth is in luck as she will be in with a chance of facing Daryl Dixon, anyway.

An internal battle sparks inside of her once again as soon as Joe announces that he will be sending someone down to assist her as soon as possible. The way that the man speaks to her is bordering on condescending, but Beth tries to ignore it whilst he explains in very simple language - almost as though he thinks she is a child as opposed to a grown woman - that he will get someone out to tow her truck down to the garage as soon as possible.

Beth spends the next forty five minutes or so sat on the side of the road in the sweating heat of the afternoon, spending little time thinking about her truck and instead debating over what on earth she would do or say if it was Daryl who came to pick her up; rescuing her as though she was some sort of damsel in distress out of a Disney movie, just like some of her dreams had him doing. At the thought of where her unconscious took her during the dead of the night, Beth cannot help but to blush a deep shade of red, and she begins to play around on her phone in an attempt to distract herself.

When the tow truck finally appears in her line of sight, Beth can tell immediately that the man behind the wheel is in fact not Daryl. If anything, the person who has been sent out to her aid is in fact the complete opposite of the youngest Dixon brother; what, with not a hair on his face and a small, slender physique, he truly is everything that Daryl isn't. His eyes are blue but nowhere near as bright or intense and when he introduces himself to her as Zach, Beth doesn't feel anything sort of flustered the way she did when Daryl spoke to her two weeks ago.

Just because he's not Daryl Dixon doesn't mean that he isn't nice enough, though, and Zach seems alright as he asks her questions about the truck - how long she's had it, what work has been done on it in the past, what happened before she had to call the garage. Throughout their conversation, he laughs and smiles and nods his head animatedly, and as his back is turned towards her whilst he rummages around inside of the hood of the truck, Beth notes that his leather jacket reads _Prospect._

Beth doesn't know what the word means and she slots it in a space inside of her mind to look into later on, when he isn't standing directly in front of her. Zach babbles on for a minute or so about what he thinks is the problem with the truck - something to do with the engine (which she could have definitely guessed herself, but Beth Greene is definitely no mechanic) - before he invites her to sit inside his own whilst he gets hers placed onto the back.

To say that he is (presumably) a member of the same biker gang that Daryl and his older brother run, Zach isn't at all intimidating and doesn't seem very threatening. If anything, he seems like a normal enough person as he sets of on the ten minute journey towards the garage, chattering on with himself and asking her questions here and there. As they ease into a natural conversation, Beth feels the tension from her shoulders begin to drip out, and despite the fact that she's nervous about the possibility of seeing Daryl at the garage (because Beth thinks that she honestly might just combust at the sight of him), Beth is just glad that she isn't sat at the side of the road any more.

Once they reach the garage and Beth steps out of the tow truck, she is greeted by a range of wolf-whistles and cat-calls. The blonde keeps her chin held high despite the fact that her cheeks are so red that they will probably start to smoke in the same manner that her truck is doing at the moment. Seemingly un-phased by the loud noise that is coming out of the different stalls inside of the garage, Zach offers Beth a smile and nods his head over towards a small building that is attached to the end of the garage.

"You can go have a seat in the reception, if you want," he says to her, and Beth turns her head then in the direction of the building, unable to help herself but to squint at the area that he is sending her off to.

From where she is standing, it sure doesn't look like much of a reception or office area. There are two long glass panels that serve as walls that help her see into it, and Beth can immediately tell that it's just a beaten down room that is in desperate need of a paint job with a few chairs put in it for good measure. Trying her best to look on the bright side of things and see that at least she can get out of the afternoon sun, Beth smiles up at the Prospect in thanks. "Okay," she says, nodding her head. "Should I call for someone to pick me up?"

Turning his upper body so that he is directly facing the smoking truck, Zach lets out a heavy sigh before he nods his head at her. "Yeah," the young man says, his eyes darting between Beth and the truck now. "Probably won't be getting your truck back today, anyway." When Zach sees her face visibly fall, he quickly swoops in to try and reassure her. "But who knows? You might be able to. Or maybe even have it back by tomorrow. I'll get one of our best mechanic's on the job - don't you worry."

Not really too sure of what to say to that (mainly because she instantly feels uncomfortable after the way the men at this place greeted her), Beth nods her head up and down quickly before informing Zach that she will be waiting in the reception. As she makes her way inside of it, she can hear someone from behind her shouting something in her direction - _sweet cheeks,_ she thinks that they call her - and the words have her cringing as she slides inside, shutting the door behind her.

* * *

In the end, it's Maggie that she calls, not her father. Not just because she doesn't want to bother her dad, but because her older sister happens to live in an apartment that's located nearby. Plus, Maggie is probably the most reliable choice out of the two, anyway.

Thankfully, Maggie does not disappoint, and the older of the two Greene girls happens to arrive at the garage in what Beth considers to be record time. The sight of Maggie's little red car pulling into one of the spaces in the lot outside has Beth sighing in relief, but then her light blue eyes are widening dramatically at the sound of her sister's raised voice.

It appears as though Maggie has chosen to deal with the men who work at the garage very differently to Beth's method of ignorance. Her sister has instead decided that she will respond to their whistles and shouts with her own loudly spoken crude words, and whilst the men laugh at her insulting phrases - loud, deep booms that make her wince - none of them actually decide to say anything else to her as she walks past the last of their bays.

Nothing is said about the manner in which she chose to speak to the men (who happen to be in an untouchable _biker gang,_ Beth reminds herself) as Maggie enters the reception. "Hey," Beth says instead in greeting as her sister throws herself down into the chair beside her, her black handbag settling down on the third chair. Smiling, Maggie repeats the greeting, seeming to be completely un-phased by the men outside. "Thanks for comin'," Beth says, shifting on her uncomfortable seat. "I can't believe it. This truck isn't even three years old an' it's already breakin' on me."

Laughing, Maggie shakes her head, causing her cropped auburn hair to fly around her face a little. "Welcome to the world of ownin' a car, Bethy," Maggie says; and before Beth can respond with a chuckle of her own, the door to the reception is being pulled open, and her breath immediately catches in her throat when she realises that it's _him._

It's a little bit awkward as he hovers in the door of the reception, seeming to be a little sceptical as he looks straight at the two women with narrowed eyes. His broad shoulders are on show because he's wearing a sleeveless flannel underneath his leather jacket, and they had tensed immediately when he realised that there were two people inside of the room.

Daryl recognises her, that much she can tell from his body language alone.

It isn't all that obvious in a way that will probably scream out to her sister, but Beth straight away notices the way in which his deep blue eyes widen ever so slightly when they hover over her and then how they look down the whole length of her - from the top of the hair on her head down to the sole of her tatty white converse - whereas they only linger on Maggie's eyes for a brief moment.

The way that he is staring at her has Beth's cheeks heating up again, and whilst Beth wonders over whether she should say anything to him or whether she should just leave it, someone behind him clears their throat, effectively knocking the youngest Dixon brother back into reality.

It keeps happening this way, Beth realises. With the two of them staring at each other until someone disturbs them and breaks the spell that has been settled upon them. Beth thinks that it's his eyes - so intense and unreadable - and the way that they draw her into him; making her never want to look away, not even to _blink._ There's an energy in the air between them; be it because of undeniable attraction or sexual attention or just straight-up _desire,_ she's not sure. But there is definitely something there and it's electric and contagious and as nervous and as shy as they both seem to be, Beth still wants more.

She wonders whether she will always want more.

It's Zach who has disturbed them, and as soon as Daryl steps aside so that the younger man can step into the reception, the vibe in the room seems to just switch.

"Have a nice break?" Zach says, smiling at Daryl who doesn't return the gesture.

Instead, Daryl nods his head briefly at the Prospect before his eyes cut back to hers again, narrowed as they lock onto her own. The deep and nervous way that she swallows is visible, that she knows, but it doesn't throw him off as he continues to stand in the doorway of the room.

The sound of Zach's voice echoes through the reception as he talks on at Beth, who is genuinely trying her hardest to listen to what it is that the mechanic is saying, but her eyes keep moving back to Daryl's as though he is a magnet that's pulling her, giving her no choice but to look directly at him. Throughout the whole time - and it has to be a good five minutes or so - that Zach talks on at both of the women (with Maggie occasionally asking questions about what needs to be done on the truck), Daryl stands in silence looking directly at her.

Beth thinks that it's almost a shame when they have to leave, now that he's there and his eyes are on hers. She thinks that she could honestly spend the rest of her day like this and be satisfied, just staring right at him and having him stare directly back at her. It isn't as though they are really communicating with their eyes, because they don't know each other at all, never mind well enough to be able to do that, but there's still _something_ in his gaze that has Beth more than just a little bit curious.

It's impossible to read this man, but _god_ does she want to.

Her body had naturally reacted to the sight of him by causing her to pool with wetness, and when Beth stands up next to her sister to say goodbye to Zach, she squirms as her thighs squeeze together in an attempt to release some of the throbbing tension between her legs. Once she has said a quick thank you to Zach for promising to have her truck returned to her by the morning and the two women move to slip out of the door, Beth notices that Daryl's eyes have squinted a little more, and she offers him a shy smile as he steps out of the reception area so that Maggie and her can make their way over to the red car.

It's as though Maggie didn't notice anything at all between her younger sister and the Vice President of the town's biggest gang as they walk over to the vehicle. As Beth straps her seatbelt in on the passenger side, she casually looks up and out of the windscreen through hooded lashes and spots Daryl Dixon leaning against the wall of the reception area, staring right back at her. There is a cigarette hanging between his lips and as their eyes stay locked on one another's, Beth finds herself to be absolutely fascinated when he blows out some smoke from his mouth.

"What the hell was that all about?"

The blonde had been so lost in looking at the glorious sight of him that she had completely forgot about her sisters presence, and Beth cannot help but to jump at the sound of Maggie's voice before she quickly turned her attention away from Daryl so that she could face her sister. Blushing, Beth stutters over her words. "What do you mean?" she asks, cursing herself in her mind for not being able to be discreet about her now blatantly obvious attraction to the youngest of the two Dixon men.

The problem is that Maggie has always been able to read her younger sibling like a book, and she cocks a brow in Beth's direction the same way that she always does whenever her younger sister is trying to play dumb to something. A knowing smirk is playing on Maggie's face as her hazel eyes glance over to where Daryl is still standing at the reception and then they move back towards Beth, who's cheeks have now turned an even deeper shade of red for what had to be the tenth time that day.

Beth is expecting a bit of a fuss, but she doesn't get it from her sister. "He's hot," is all that Maggie says about it before she starts up the engine and begins to drive.

Had Beth been in a better, more relaxed mood, then she might have laughed and giggled with her older sister about the silly crush that she has on Daryl Dixon. But this isn't a day for gossiping - not when she's had the longest morning of her life in lectures and her only mode of transport has just died on her - and this isn't a silly sort of crush, either.

Beth knows because she's had crushes before in the past; on her friends and on Shawn's friends and even on her teachers, too, and this feels like something so much _more_ than that. It's something that she cannot put into words, but it's something powerful and overwhelming and intense. It's something that makes her want to scream and cry and laugh at the same time, something that makes her want to be bold and brave and nervous and quiet, too. It's something that makes her feel sexy and brazen and wanted and shy and small and withdrawn, and all of these contrasting emotions and feelings are beginning to take their toll on her to the point that she feels exhausted, and the last thing that Beth wants to do right now is explain any of this to her sister.

Not when she can't even understand it for herself, at least.

Beth's light eyes naturally find their way back to Daryl's, and Beth looks at him the entire time that it takes for her sister to drive them out of the garage. On his part, his eyes never leave hers, either, and Beth doesn't know whether or not the long stares that he has given her today make her feel any better about the whole situation or whether they make her feel worse.

(They make her feel better, of course. Much, much better.)

* * *

 **Thank you as always for reading and please let me know what you think of this chapter and this story as a whole!**


	4. Chapter 4

**OK, so I attempted Daryl's POV and tried my best to move on the interactions for these two as I didn't want to drag it out too much. I'm also trying to involve other characters in this story as I do want there to be *some* plot as well as Bethyl in here, and I can't do that without writing their interactions with other characters.**

 **I am really _not_ as confident when it comes to writing from Daryl's perspective as I am with Beth's, so please be kind!**

 **P.S: sorry for any little spelling mistakes/grammar issues. I've written this whole chapter in one go on my iPad so I'll check it over when I get chance later on. Until then - enjoy! And thanks as always for all of the amazing reviews, plus the favourites and follows! :)**

* * *

Thirty eight days after seeing her for the first time in his life, Daryl Dixon finally concluded that Beth Greene is a straight-up cock tease.

Up until this precise moment, the man had been wary of labelling her as such because he genuinely did not believe that the girl really had any idea about just how crazy she was currently driving him (and probably countless other men, too, but he really didn't want to think on about that). There had been three occasions so far that he could think of when the two of them had bumped into each other - and Daryl was pretty sure that he would remember if he had seen _this_ girl more times than that - and every time that he had laid his own eyes upon her, the blonde seemed to have been looking straight back at him, too.

And fuck if he hadn't wanted her since the very first moment that he saw her. There had been women in his life before, sure - hell, Merle made it practically impossible for him not to have a woman around at least once in a while - but there had never, ever been anything like this before. The problem here was that this girl didn't even look to be a day over the age of eighteen, and whilst there was a lot of shit that Daryl found himself involved in (primarily guns - a fucking _lot_ of them, too), he still had his boundaries, had his limits.

Jail bait had never been something that had tempted him.

Well, at least it hadn't ever been before _her._

And in all fairness, for all of the innocent looks that she had ever thrown his way with those big blue eyes and those long, batting eyelashes of hers, Daryl Dixon was pretty damned sure that this girl was anything but experienced when it came to self-awareness. Beth Greene sure as hell was not like him and his useless ass who couldn't even decide whether he was upset or angry when things got a little tough. Despite the fact that he had seen her (twice) struggling to deal with her alcoholic daddy, there still seemed to be this sort of easy-breezy air about her that made it perfectly clear to him that she had not been raised in the same way that he had been: with a belt and a hard fist.

Whilst there were a lot of things that Daryl couldn't admit to himself, one thing that he managed to was the fact that he was actually glad that Beth Greene seemed to have had at least a half-decent upbringing. The one that Merle and himself had had wasn't something that he would wish upon anyone else on this fucking planet; never mind some sweet-ass girl who didn't seem to really bother anyone at all. And whilst everything about her seemed to physically pull him into her general space in a way that he had never experienced before; the knowledge of just how different the two of them were - not just in the ways that their pasts had been, but also the way that their lives were _now_ \- kept him as far away from her as he possibly could be.

If he was a different person - his brother, perhaps, or one of the other guys from the club - then he sure as hell wouldn't have even bothered wasting a fucking minute of his life when it came to approaching her. The guys he called family went up to random women all of the time, and if they got them then it was great, and if they didn't then it was just a case of having a laugh about it and moving on. But Daryl had never really been like that - his brother always did call him the sweet one - and if anything, this girl was something else.

He didn't know her and probably never would, but Daryl knew as soon as he saw her that she deserved a lot better than that. Knew that the tiny slip of a thing deserved more than to be in some shitty bar dragging her drunk dad home like she was his damned mother. Knew that she deserved better than to be getting oggled by some redneck biker who frequented this bar at least a couple of times a week.

But when she looked at him in the way that she did - with her light blue eyes dancing, practically twinkling as they took all of him in - had Daryl thinking that maybe this damned girl felt the exact same thing that he did, too. Whenever her eyes lingered upon his, it almost seemed as though she wanted the same thing that he did, that she had the same thoughts as he was.

Like they were sharing this experience together.

Like the tension wasn't all just on his side.

Like he wasn't some sort of sick pervert for even looking at her in the way that he was.

Compared to all of the previous times that they had seen each other, tonight was... well, it was _different,_ all round. For a start, it was - for once - him invading her space, as opposed to it being the other way round, which he had actually grown accustomed to, to the point where he kind of expected her to come bursting in at any moment. That's the way that it had been on those three times before, with Beth coming to _him -_ either when she entered the bar that he and his gang spent a lot of time at in search for her father, or when she came down to the garage that he _fucking owned_ to get her truck fixed, it was always her coming towards him.

But tonight - for the first time - it had all been _him._

And sure, it wasn't as though Beth actually owned the coffee shop that he was currently sat at the back of (at least, he didn't think that she did), but it was her who was stood up on a small makeshift stage with a guitar in her hands, singing some soft song into the microphone that had been put there for her. And it was her family and friends who filled out the majority of the front tables, all cheering her on; smiling and clapping loudly every time that she finished a song.

As Daryl slouched down in his seat at the back of the coffee shop whilst he waited to meet with the town's Sheriff - who, for the record, should have been meeting him at least twenty five minutes ago, which would have made this thing look a lot less creepy since he wouldn't have been sat on his own when she got up on stage and started singing - Daryl tried his best not to feel too uncomfortable.

But since she had first stepped onto that small little stage, her light blue eyes had been lingering on him a little too much for his liking, and it seemed that with every passing minute the blonde was getting bolder and braver. It was quickly becoming far too much for him to simply ignore her - not when he could feel her eyes burning straight into the side of his head - and when she sang some of the lyrics to the songs (whether they were her own original ones or not, he had absolutely no idea), she stared right at him as though they were meant for him and only him.

 _He's so tall, and handsome as hell/He's so bad, but he does it so well._

 _Time is only wasting so why wait for eventually?/If we're gonna do something about it, we should do it right now._

The words were sang so softly and so innocently but all that Daryl had to do was look up and meet her eyes to know that she definitely meant anything but by all of this. It wasn't as though he could tell whether or not she actually wanted him, because Daryl Dixon had never been the best at understanding what was going on in a woman's mind; but he was one hundred percent sure that this girl knew what she was doing to him right now.

And fuck, she was loving every second of torturing him, he could just _tell._

(Or, maybe his mind was running a little bit wild with this one, and maybe he was losing it just a little bit).

By the time that Rick Grimes finally makes an appearance in the coffee shop and drops himself into the seat beside him, Daryl has plucked up the courage to just sit here in his seat and watch Beth Greene as she performs. He had only ever heard her name as a random whisper before - some sad words about her mama who had passed away - but he had put two and two together when she showed up at the bar that first night. It was obvious that the blonde was one of Hershel's daughters (mostly because there was no way on earth anyone else would care enough to show up and help the old man like that), and since he knew that the older one was going out with his pizza delivery guy, Glenn (who described his girlfriend Maggie Greene as having brown hair, not blonde), he figured that she was Beth.

After her visit to the garage with her truck, his suspicions of her name were confirmed, but even if he hadn't been as confident as he was, then the sound of a young man sat at the front of the coffee shop shouting out _"Go on, Beth!"_ every time that she finished a song was enough to clarify it in his mind.

The next song that she sings is a cover of a Sinatra one - Under My Skin, he thinks it might be called, or something like that anyway - and the blonde has grown in confidence, too, because she is literally looking directly at him (all hooded blue eyes and everything) the whole time that she sings the fucking song. There is definitely nothing at all discreet about the small smiles she offers to him as she sings the chorus, and her breathless giggle once she has finished might as well have sent him under.

Despite the fact that he practically missed the whole fucking performance, Rick Grimes claps loudly along with the rest of the people gathered in the coffee shop from where he is sat beside him. The noise irritates him a lot more than it probably should - hell, if he was a better person then he would probably clap for this girl, too - and Daryl finds it within him to turn his attention away from the blushing blonde and instead focuses on the Sheriff.

"The hell took _you_ so long?" Daryl snaps in his direction, narrowing his eyes at the man. It wasn't as though the two of them were necessarily friends or enemies, per se, but the two of them had what Daryl liked to think of as a _mutual understanding_ when it came to matters about the safety of this town and it's inhabitants, and also when it came down to the club.

Despite being President of the club, Merle was... well, _Merle,_ and he never really did have a way of getting along with law-abiding citizens (and law-enforcement officers) at the best of times. So his big brother seemed to think that it was a much better idea to send Daryl to talk with the Sheriff whenever he damn-well pleased, and if he was being honest, Daryl supposed that it was a better idea to have him here instead of Merle.

But tonight had been different in more ways than one, because tonight had been on the Sheriff's terms, not Daryl's.

The thing was that even if Rick was an officer, he wasn't a bad guy - actually, he was a pretty damn decent guy - and unlike his partner, Shane, Rick understood that the guys who were part of Merle's club weren't bad people, either. There had even been a few times where Daryl had felt as though the two of them were working together, not against each other, even if nobody else around them could really see that.

Shrugging his shoulders, Rick sat back in his seat, looking as though he was trying to get comfortable in it. "Wife," is all that he says in lieu of an explanation, and Daryl's shoulders slowly relax some as he mimics Rick's posture.

It isn't as though the mechanic actually understands all that much about relationships because he has never really had one that hasn't fucked up (and hell, he sure hasn't ever been married before), but he can appreciate the fact that keeping someone happy at all times whilst still trying to look after yourself and your own happiness sure isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. It isn't as though Daryl feels sorry for Rick, because he made the choice to be married, after all, but he supposes that he can understand where he might be coming from with his frustration.

Wanting to change the subject, Daryl clears his throat. "So," he says, ignoring the sound of Beth's gentle voice as she announces that this next song will be her last one of the evening. "There any reason you asked me to come down here, or were you jus' plannin' on us havin' a coffee an' a chit-chat about our feelin's like some old gossipin' ladies?"

Shaking his head, Rick lets out a low chuckle, his blue eyes darting between where Beth is stood on the stage and where Daryl is sat beside him. If the man think anything much of the fact that Daryl is currently sat with his hands balled into fists - one by his side, the other on the table between them - and his jaw locked tightly, then he doesn't voice it or even hint towards it. Instead, Rick pulls his Sheriff's hat down from his head and looks at it thoughtfully. "Nah," he says, shaking his head again. "There was a reason."

It's a little bit dramatic for Daryl's liking, this whole conversation, and for a good few seconds it's quiet between the two of them. The sound of Beth singing some song about being good fills his ears, and Daryl fights the temptation to just steal a quick glance at her as much as he possibly can. The mechanic refuses to turn and face the young blonde's direction because he thinks to himself that if he does, then he _loses_ whatever it it that they're playing each other on, and if not giving her attention helps to push her to back off, then that's a win-win for him.

(It's not a win-win for him, though. Of course it isn't. Not when he wants her as much as he does.)

"We need to talk about your brother," Rick says as his eyes dart up from the hat to Daryl's, interrupting the man's over-active thoughts about Beth fucking Greene.

Those words immediately grab his attention and straight away Daryl seems to be even more tense than he was before, which he personally hadn't thought would be possible. "What about him?" Daryl asks, his voice low and hoarse, words coming out slow despite the fact that he wants to rush them all. His breathing is steady and deep, but Daryl knows that it is also heavy - not the way that it is when he's hunting, when he's trying his best to be composed and quiet - and he also knows that Rick can sense the fact that he is suddenly on edge.

It's the mention of Merle, though - it just does this to him, no matter how many years the two of them have been doing this. The club itself tries it's best to stay clean and good and even though it's impossible for it to always be that way, Daryl didn't think that there was some sort of huge problem with the law (at least at the moment, anyway). They're all pretty good at covering up their shit, even the Prospect's, and Daryl wonders what it is that has Merle in trouble with the cops this time.

Sighing, Rick looks back to the hat in his hands. "There's been a problem down at the station."

Narrowing his deep blue eyes in the Sheriff's direction, Daryl is surprised that he isn't physically shaking but this point. He wants nothing more than for Rick to just get to the fucking point here, to just explain to him what on earth is going on with his brother. "The hell is that supposed to mean?" he spits out, his tone bitter and angry.

But Daryl is _seething,_ burning with anger that he can't even describe or explain, and he knows in the small, rational part of his mind that he's panicking; that he's worried and scared and confused. But it doesn't come out that way, and at this point, Daryl is distracted enough by what is being said between Rick and himself that he doesn't even register the fact that Beth has finished her last song and is thanking everyone who came down to the coffee shop to support her.

On his face, it is more than evident that Rick is battling emotions, and despite the fact that the man is only silent for a couple of seconds, Daryl's poor temper and general lack of patience means that he is struggling to hold back angry demands regarding his brother. Just before he can open his mouth to say something that he will most likely regret at a later time, though, Rick finally decides to take the opportunity to speak; heaving out a long, drawn-out sigh before he chooses to explain himself fully.

"It's Candy," Rick says, rubbing a hand over his freshly shaven face. "You know, the -" he looks around at everyone briefly, seeming to be satisfied that they are too busy cheering for the blonde who is still stood on stage with a bright smile on her face before leaning in over the table towards Daryl, his voice low and his body suddenly tense. "The _escort._ "

He is still as tense as he was before, but Daryl cannot help himself but to snort loudly and shake his head. "Tha's one way to put it," he mumbles, not necessarily under his breath, but quiet all the same.

Rick doesn't say anything to the sarcastic comment, but Daryl can tell just by his facial expression that the Sheriff knows exactly what it is that he means and that the man actually agrees with him on it, too.

"Yeah, _her,_ " Rick says, leaning backwards in his seat once again. "She paid a visit to the station, earlier on this morning. Wasn't there myself, so can't be sure that everythin' I'm gonna tell you is one hundred percent accurate, but it's everythin' that Shane has told me so far, an' I'm pretty sure he wouldn't lie to me about it."

Nodding, Daryl doesn't even think of anything to say to Rick right now. Instead, he carries on staring straight at the Sheriff, waiting for him to get to the point of all of this so that he can just deal with it sooner rather than later. The sighs are getting a lot heavier and a lot more frequent, and Daryl takes it as a bad sign. "She's sayin' that she needs some help, some... _advice_ on what to do, how to testify against your brother."

It's not the worst news that Daryl has ever heard in his life - hell, it's nothing even close to the way that he felt when he realised that his mama had burned herself and their house straight to the ground - but his heart is still pounding in his chest all the same and still swallows thickly as he processes the information. "For wha'?" Daryl asks, his voice low and rough, worry evident on his usually unreadable features.

"Rape."

* * *

The bar is that he is in is sticky and sweaty and warm. Daryl has never been here before, but now that he's perched on a stool by the bar, he understands exactly why nobody has ever encouraged him to set foot in this place.

It's not to his tastes or liking in the sightest bit, and Daryl smirks to himself at the idea of coming to somewhere like this with any of the guys. It's located in a basement of a property, the upstairs of which is a restaurant that serves late night food, and the drinks here don't come in bottles, or even classes - they come in _mason jars._

What Daryl considers to be even worse is that a big curly straw is places in each drink, and every time that the bar maid plops a fresh drink in front of him, he rips out the straw and tosses it beside him on the bar - just to make a point. (He never said he wasn't a dick, especially when he's drunk).

This place actually has a drinks menu, too, and Daryl naturally pulls his face and throws daggers at every person who comes near him and orders something from that stupid menu. It's just not a place that he's used to despite the fact that it's really pretty harmless, and Daryl never has liked change, yet for some reason unbeknown to him, he sits here as though he's waiting for something.

And then at the sight of Beth Greene descending the stairs a good hour or so later, he finally registers _why._

This whole thing between the two of them is getting frustrating as hell, and Daryl hasn't even had a real conversation with the girl. It's all long, drawn out looks from her side that he can't help but return; and despite the fact that Daryl never has been all that confident with women or even bothered regarding them, he suddenly finds himself wanting to approach her.

And he's pretty damned drunk right now, so that would definitely be a bad idea - but as soon as her eyes lock onto his as she walks past him, linking arms with another girl that he doesn't recognise, Daryl has a feeling that it's going to be practically impossible for him to stay away from her tonight.

The biggest issue tonight is the fact that his head is a fucking mess. And it's usually that way anyway, but tonight is just extreme, especially after the conversation that he's had with Rick Grimes. The Sheriff's words buzz around in his head over and over again, and although Daryl really needs to have an important talk with his big brother, he finds himself rooted tightly to his seat at the bar.

And now that he's here, most of those negative thoughts that had been swirling around in his mind - about his brother and what he was going to do, about that bitch and her fake rape charge (because Daryl _knows_ that Merle, despite being a pretty horrible person when he wanted to be, would never do that to a woman) - disappear. It's bad, that he knows, and he doesn't want this girl to have any sort of affect on him.

Not like this.

But this girl - _Beth -_ she has this pull on him, some sort of magnetic effect that he just can't explain or understand. It's not just because he thinks she's hot, because he's thought that of other women before and never felt like this. And it's not like it's all just sexual tension - even though that's a pretty big part of it - but he doesn't really know what it is, and feeling this way about a girl he has barely even spoken to just makes him feel all sorts of pissed off.

(Daryl can't really deny the fact that he isn't very good at dealing with his emotions, either.)

It's another torturous twenty minutes of drinking and playing on his phone before Daryl decides that he needs to leave this place. The thought of her being there when he's in this sort of state is just too much, and he heaves out a sigh before pushing himself up and heading towards the men's bathroom.

This is also the sort of place that has three bathrooms; a men's, a women's, and a unisex. At the sight of the ones in the middle, Daryl rolls his eyes, not sure why the hell there was a need for a fucking unisex bathroom.

Once he's ready to leave, Daryl quickly exits the bathroom, not really paying attention to his surroundings and walking directly into someone else's much smaller body. It's not like he's really effected by the contact, but the other person is, and he quickly reaches out despite himself to steady them, his eyes unfocused in the smokey darkness of the bar.

"Watch where you're _goin',_ " he bites out, his tone harsh.

The body stiffens under his grasp and Daryl immediately lets go at the sound of their voice, the realisation of who it is hitting him straight in the face. He drops her arms like they've burned his skin, and his eyes widen for a brief moment before they dramatically narrow instead.

"Sorry," Beth says, shaking her head and blinking up at him. "I didn't mean to."

The music playing in the bar has been pissing him off the whole time that he's been here, practically encouraging his head to throb violently because it was that loud. But all of a sudden it feels incredibly quiet, and now that she's stood here in front of him, it's like everything around them has slowed down.

His eyes are still narrowed and his posture is still tense and defensive, but the pull comes over him once again and Daryl can't help but relax ever so slightly after a second or two. From where she's stood in front of him, Beth does the same, and even though he figured that she was supposed to be going to the bathroom, that seems to have been forgotten as she blinks up at him.

"I'm Beth," she breathes out, unexpectedly breaking the silence between them. Perhaps it's the alcohol that's slowing down his reflexes, or maybe he's just not as observant as he's getting older, but he stands there looking all dumbfounded as Beth reaches one of her small hands out to him.

Daryl frowns down at the sight of it before his eyes flicker up to meet with hers again, but even the soft, nervous smile on her face isn't enough to encourage him to touch her again. Now that he know how she feels underneath his fingertips - all smooth and soft - Daryl isn't sure that he'll be able to sleep tonight, and he doesn't want to add to this weird thing that's going on between the two of them.

Instead, he nods his head at her. "I know," he says, not bothering to introduce himself to her in return. Daryl might be a lot of things, but he sure as hell isn't stupid; and he doesn't even have to be any sort of genius to figure out that everyone in this town knows who he is - Beth included. It's not like he likes it, in fact, it's quite the opposite - Daryl can't stand people knowing who he is, and the last thing that he wants is for someone he doesn't even know to be poking around in his business, acting like they know everything about him because they've heard stories or seen him pass in the street.

The girl is quiet again now, and Daryl doesn't know whether it's a good or bad thing. Even so, he tries not to think about it too much and instead shifts around on his feet, trying to make it clear to her without it being incredibly awkward that he's going to move away from her now.

But then her hand is wrapping around his arm and she's stepping closer to him, and Daryl can't do anything but tense up, freezing on the spot in pure and utter shock. This time, he doesn't try and hide the fact that she's surprised him, but just when he's about to lash out at her for getting all up in his personal space, Beth seems to realise what she's done and drops her hand.

The blonde isn't drunk, not like him - he can just tell. He can tell by the fact that she's standing perfectly fine on both feet, by the fact that her breath smells minty and fresh and her eyes are wide and twinkling.

"I saw you at the coffee shop," she says, her voice low now, her eyes raising up from where they had been lingering on his bare arm so that she's looking directly at him. She's nervous, he realises - her words are a little shaky and her eyes are wider than usual.

When he doesn't respond, Beth visibly swallows. "I didn't know that you knew Rick."

He snorts at that. "Girl, you don't know _shit_ about me," he says, and Daryl is actually a little bit surprised at just how harsh his tone is.

(Yeah - he really is a dick when he's drunk.)

For a few seconds, her expression turns angry, and Daryl is expecting her to reach out sand slap him with her hand or bite some harsh words back at him. Instead, the blonde inhales and exhales deeply before offering him a soft smile, looking as though she has suddenly turned calm.

It's actually annoying, because a big part of him had _wanted_ that sort of reaction from her. There's probably no use trying to push this girl away but he can't help himself but try, despite the fact that she doesn't seem very interested in his intentions.

"Guess I don't," Beth breathes out, her voice soft and low. Daryl doesn't feel guilty for the way that he has spoken to her, but he exhales a deep breath of his own anyway, trying his best to compose his wild thoughts before they drift off too far.

Because before he can actually register what it is that he's doing, Daryl is staring directly at her lips and nowhere else. If the look on her face is anything to go by then Beth knows exactly where it is he's looking and exactly what it is that he's thinking, but she doesn't move her own eyes away from his.

The pattern of her breathing is something akin to hypnotising him as he watches her chest move up and down, watches her lips twitches slightly every time that she breathes in and then out. In a way, it's calming to him, and his own breathing is soon matching hers; although that had never been what he had intended, never been what he had been looking for.

He is mesmerised as he watches her tongue creep out and swipe against her bottom lip, wetting it with her spit so that it shines all of a sudden. At the sight of her doing it, Daryl sucks in a breath, and his earlier suspicion is now confirmed: Beth Greene is _definitely_ a cock tease.

She knows what she's doing, he's sure of it, but it doesn't stop him from creeping closer towards her. Daryl is a little bit taken aback by the fact that she's still standing here in front of him, especially after the way that he's spoken to her, and he can't help but think to himself that he hopes that she knows he didn't mean to be that way towards her. If he could somehow find the words then maybe he would apologise (but _fuck,_ he's a dick, so he probably wouldn't) so instead Daryl clears his throat.

"'M a dick," he murmurs, edging closer towards her so that he can feel her breath on his face now. "When I'm drunk."

He's leaning down, further and further, being pulled in by her and he just can't stop it. Even if he wanted to, Daryl knows that he's too far gone right now - too drawn in by the temptation of her lips and the steadiness of her breathing and the moistness of her tongue. Beth breathes out a little laugh, and the sound actually forces him to smile, but the moment isn't very long-lived because then his lips are covering hers.

Her mouth is soft against his own and even though it had to be obvious what he was doing, Beth still sags in relief against him as though she wasn't expecting this to ever happen. As his lips move against her own, Daryl knows for sure that she's not had a drink, and the knowledge that he's not taking advantage of this tiny slip of a girl makes him feel a tiny bit better.

(If anything, it's her taking advantage of him, but he's not going down that route right now, not going to think too much of it.)

When his tongue slips inside of her mouth Beth lets a little moan escape her, and the sound vibrates through his throat in a delicious manner. It encourages him to move closer towards her, and after a few clumsy and mindless steps backwards, Daryl has Beth pinned beneath him against the wall. One of his legs moves so that his thigh is resting between the both of hers, and she quickly shifts against him; taking the bait and rubbing herself onto his leg, whining into his mouth as she does so and raking her fingers through his hair.

This whole thing between them has never been innocent, and this kiss sure as hell isn't innocent, either. Their lips move together at a quickening pace, and as Daryl sucks and bites and nips at her lips and her tongue, Beth moans more into his mouth. It gets to a point where the mechanic worries that he's being a little too rough with her - particularly when he grabs her hips and yanks her further up his thigh, dragging her impossibly closer to him in a way that has her letting out a surprised squeal - but Beth doesn't seem to be bothered by his actions, so he doesn't think any more of it.

At the start of this kiss, his hazy drunken mind had considered that maybe this would help things between them die down, that maybe it would quell the fire and desire that had been building inside of him since the first time that he saw her. But now that he has touched her and tasted her, Daryl knows for a fact that this won't make anything between them any better.

If anything, it will surely make them worse. (It won't stop him kissing her, though - not at all).


	5. Chapter 5

**I just wanted to drop in a quick thank you for all of the support that I've received on this story so far, especially all of the lovely reviews that I've been left! This is the biggest response I've ever had to any of my Bethyl fics and I'm really excited about where to go with this story. This chapter starts to introduce a bit more plot, and I'll definitely be returning to Daryl's POV, but I can't say right now whether it will be the next chapter or not.**

 **But yeah - thank you! I really appreciate all of your kind words and the follows and favourites, too. Enjoy!**

* * *

Suddenly, there seem to be lots of things for Beth to process, but it's incredibly difficult for her to focus on anything right now apart from the fact that she has been pinned up tightly against a wall at the back of the bar and that Daryl Dixon's tongue is in her mouth.

The kisses that the two of them are sharing are hot and wet and hard as the youngest Dixon brother explores her mouth, licking the back of her teeth and the roof of her mouth as he does so. The man is anything but gentle or delicate with her, but Beth doesn't mind that at all. The blonde can honestly not recall ever being kissed like this before in her entire life. It's just so passionate and forceful in the best way that a kiss possibly can be, and although it's obvious from their clashing teeth that neither of them have had much practice in the art of kissing, Beth thinks that this might just be the best moment of her life.

It feels incredibly, really. As Daryl kisses her with a bruising amount of pressure - his hands have wandered underneath her tank top so that they are gripping at the bare flesh of her hips in a way that will most definitely leave small fingerprint marks on either side - Beth is overcome by the thought that perhaps, during all of this time, this man has wanted her just as much as she has wanted him.

The thought of it leaves Beth feeling slightly dizzy (well, that combined with the punishing rhythm that the man has set against her lips), and in that moment, the blonde is very thankful for the looming, heavy weight of him pinning her up close against the wall. (If he wasn't there to hold onto her, then Beth thinks that she might just float up in to the air or melt into a puddle onto the floor).

As she stands there with her back pressed against the cool surface of the brick wall, Daryl Dixon's hands on her hips and his tongue in her mouth and one of his thighs slide between the two of hers, Beth has truly never felt so unlike herself before. It's strange, she knows, yet it's not an uncomfortable or unnerving feeling that seems a little too much for her. In fact, the way that she feels right now is very liberating, and the blonde cannot help but adore it; giggling sweetly into their kiss out of pure and utter glee.

The heat that is pooling between her legs is quickly becoming far too much for Beth to bare, and without even giving her bold behaviour a second thought, Beth moves her arms so that they are locked around the back of Daryl's neck and rolls her hips so that her core presses harder and then rubs down on Daryl's thigh. The movement is based on pure instinct, and the friction that she feels as a result of the motion is so wonderful and satisfying that Beth immediately repeats it, rolling her hips in the same way against his thigh again and again and again.

At some point, Beth had began to whimper directly into his mouth out of a mixture of pleasure and desperation, but the sound didn't stop Daryl from kissing her. If anything, Beth thinks to herself that the noises that she is currently making seem to spur him on; that they seem to encourage him to kiss her faster and harder, to delve his tongue further into her mouth and to groan himself at the sensation.

The taste of alcohol and cigarettes are strong on his breath and although Beth has never had any experience with either substance, she just _knows_ that's what it is that she can taste on him. It's not necessarily off-putting like she always thought that it would be - at least, it's not making her not want to kiss him, anyway.

His hands snake down from where they have been resting on her hips and before Beth can even think about what he is doing, Daryl moves his hands down to her knees so that they rest on her kneecap and uses a little bit of his strength to nudge them apart, spreading her legs out as wide as they can go so that she can grind against his thigh with more freedom.

Their kisses seem to be becoming a lot more clumsy, but Beth thinks that she might actually like these kisses better. When Daryl slides his hands so that they are looped underneath her legs and wraps his thick fingers around her thighs, Beth thinks for a moment that he might just pick her up and pull her high into the air - but he doesn't. Instead, Daryl just grips onto her tightly - not with too much force, but with enough so that her light blue eyes fly open in shock at the painful yet pleasurable contact.

Their kiss is broken by the way in which she jumped back from him slightly at the feel of him gripping onto her, and Beth accidentally slams the back of her head into the wall with quite some force. The blow is painful, but in all honesty, she is far too gone at this point to even really notice or care.

The funny thing is that right now, in this moment, Beth feels incredibly drunk.

It's a very strange feeling for her to have, though, because she hasn't even touched a drop of alcohol all night. The blonde doesn't even know what being drunk actually feels like, considering the fact that she has never even tasted liquor before in her life (after everything that her daddy has been through, why on earth would she want to?). But as Daryl kisses her, Beth finds that her head is spinning and her heart is pounding so quickly that she can literally _hear_ it throbbing in her ears.

And as Beth's body responds to everything that Daryl does without allowing her mind a moment to even begin to over-think it, she is sure that this is _exactly_ why people around the globe drink the way that they do. Whilst Beth might be young, she understands the way that addictions work, and she is sure that _this_ is the feeling that people are searching for when they reach for the bottle, the feeling that her daddy has been recklessly chasing since her mama's death. It's satisfying in a way to know that Daryl has given her this; to know that she doesn't need to do what her father does and reach out for the bottle -

\- but in a way, it also makes her worry, because she now has a feeling that this man might just be her vice.

(And if that is indeed the case, then she is well and truly _screwed._ )

The whole time that Daryl has been pulling Beth into his orbit - all of the longing, lustful looks that he has offered her over the last few weeks combined with the intense and incredibly sexual dreams that she has been having at his expense - Beth had honestly never once dared herself to believe that anything between them would actually be so _fierce_ between the two of them. The connection that she seems to have with this man had been in her head for what honestly felt like forever, and now that something was really happening between them...

... If she wasn't here right now then she honestly wouldn't believe it, but all that Beth could do for it was kiss him even harder.

Since she isn't actually drunk, Beth happens to be aware of the fact that the two of them are _in the middle of a_ local _bar_ and that one of her good friends, Amy, is no doubt watching the pair of them behave in this reckless manner with her mouth wide open. But strangely enough - for what might actually be the first time in her life - Beth just doesn't care about what any of the people around her think. Whether anybodyin this little town likes it or not, Beth Greene is currently kissing Daryl Dixon - and absolutely _nothing_ is going to get in the way of that.

Well, at least she thought that it wouldn't have done, anyway. But just as quickly as their fiery kiss started, it comes to an abrupt ending as Daryl yanks his mouth away from hers. Before Beth can even open her mouth or blink up at him, Daryl pulls his hands away from her legs and takes a step backwards, putting a reasonable amount of distance between the pair of them so quickly that you would have thought that she had burned him.

For a moment, all that Beth can do is concentrate on the sight of him stood there before her. She has seen him quite a few times by now, but never like this. Daryl's own deep blue eyes are stuck right on hers, his hair dishevelled and his chest rising and falling at the same rapid pace as her own. Beth knows that her mouth is hanging wide open as she stares straight at him, but she's still recovering from the loss of warmth and closeness that he provided for her to be able to think much of it. Really, all that Beth can think about is wondering what it was that has caused him to stop kissing her and how she can get him to do it again because -

\- And then, just like that, Beth finds herself snapping out of the moment and coming back down to earth. Her wandering train of thought stops dead at the sound of gunfire coming from outside of the bar, and her light blue eyes widen very dramatically as shots fire at what seems to be a never-ending rate. She has heard that sound a few times by now; heard her daddy shooting a couple of times on the farm - usually to scare off a fox that's making it's way towards their chickens - so that she can recognise it easily.

But this type of gunfire has Beth feeling nervous and _scared,_ and her heart is pounding quickly in her chest for a much different reason now. Before Beth even has time to suck in a deep breath, Daryl has disappeared from where he had been standing in front of her, and it takes a couple more seconds of standing there wide-eyed before the adrenaline and the panic settle into her body.

* * *

"You know, Beth; I still can't believe that you kissed Daryl Dixon. _You!_ "

Beth didn't know whether or not she should be offended right now, but she chose to just not say anything at all as she rolled her eyes from where she was sat in the drivers seat of the truck. Beside her, Amy continued to chatter on with herself, shaking her head from side to side in obvious disbelief.

Despite the fact that the kiss itself had happened over forty eight hours ago, her friend had been behaving like this all day - as though the thought of Beth actually kissing someone surprised her that much. It was (actually) tiring listening to Amy go on and on and on about it, but Beth supposed that - in all fairness - she could sort of understand where it was that the blonde was coming from with her surprise. Beth tried to reason with herself that it was probably not so much shock at the fact that it had been Beth kissing _someone_ as it was the fact that it had been the youngest of the Dixon brothers -

"I mean, really, Beth. You. _You!"_ Amy sighed, smiling as she shook her head, causing her hair to fly around wildly. "I just can't believe it."

Beth let out a little huff that was powerful enough to move some stray strands of hair back from where they had been settled against her face, and she chose to just concentrate on the empty road in front of her instead of her friend. The last thing that Beth wanted to think of right now was Daryl Dixon - what, after he had left her stranded in the middle of the bar and just disappeared into what she could only imagine was the line of gunfire - but Amy really wasn't helping her with that.

Beth didn't even know if he was safe, if he was _alive_ (which was probably an over-reaction since she would have definitely heard about someone being killed in this town), and yet Amy seemed to think that it was perfectly normal to rant on about her _kissing_ him.

(In all honesty, it had been all that Beth had been able to think about for the last few days, too.)

"Not that I mean it like, you know... _offensively,_ or anythin'. It's just that... it's _you._ " Not looking Amy's direction as she turned down a side street, Beth chose to simply bite on her lower lip and cock one of her eyebrows at her friend's poor choice of words. Amy was quick to attempt to correct herself. "I mean - not like that. At all. It's just that you're, you know -"

"Amy," Beth said, a little bit of laughter in her voice as she spoke. "If you're gonna say the word 'you' again -"

"No, I'm not!" Amy rushed to interrupt her, shaking her head quickly from side to side once again. "All I mean is that you're a - you know. A _good_ girl. Like, a _really_ good girl, and Daryl..." The blonde trailed off at that, seeming to be a little stuck and unsure on what to say next. Clearing her throat, Amy shuffled around in her seat before she explained herself further. "Well, I guess that he's pretty... _bad._ Isn't he?"

The way that Amy's tone rose at the end of her question had Beth thinking that her friend was worried that she had said the wrong thing to her, and in all honesty, Amy actually had. But as much as Beth wanted nothing more than to defend Daryl, she also knew that it was really practically impossible considering the fact that she didn't even know the man or anything much about him. In fact, all that Beth knew was that he was the Vice President of a gang (or 'club', as they preferred to be referred to) that ran this town - along with the Sheriff's department, of course - and that he worked at the local garage as a mechanic.

Still, Amy's description of Daryl just irritated her all the same, and she felt strongly that she couldn't just not say _anything._

 _"_ I don't know," Beth said, shrugging her shoulders as she moved to pull over just outside of Amy's house. She lived there with her older sister, Andrea, and it was just the two of them living in town now since their parents had retired and moved to Florida. Beth knew that Amy missed them a lot, but at the same time she never wanted to talk to anyone about it, and Beth wasn't going to try and force her into talking to her. "I don't know much about him, really, other than the rumours that I've heard. An' I don't wanna be the sort of girl who just _judges_ someone she doesn't even know the first thing about."

Underneath the surface of it, Beth knew that her statement could be seen as being a little bit of a dig at her friend, but it didn't really seem that way when her soft tone of voice and wide blinking eyes were taken into account. Once the truck came to a stop outside of the house, Beth finally allowed herself to glance over at her friend, offering her a gentle smile that Amy immediately returned.

"I guess I know what you mean," the other girl said, her lips quirking up higher and higher. "Just don't go fallin' in love with him, alright?"

Beth couldn't help but let out a laugh at that, but she didn't say anything in response to it, either. Beside her, Amy laughed a little bit too before she dropped her head, staring down at her hands which were currently resting in her lap.

"That stuff that happened the other night... With the guns," Amy said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. Her words trailed off as she looked up to face Beth, her own eyes wide and uncertainty evident on her face. "I guess it just makes all that club stuff that those guys are involved in _real,_ you know? An' I mean, don't get me wrong, he's _hot._ Like, really hot. But I just want you to be careful."

Sighing, Beth nodded her head up and down. "Amy, I know," she said, running a hand through her thick hair. "That stuff the other night scared me, too."

"I know," Amy responded, gathering up her belongings from where they were resting at her feet. "The last thing that you need is to get into any sort of trouble 'cause of this guy. An' seriously, Beth, I'm _so_ up for you going for the bad boy type - but maybe... Maybe Daryl Dixon is just _too_ bad boy. You know?"

Beth just blinked over at her friend, a blank expression on her face as she didn't know what to say back to her, and after a few seconds of silence Amy let out a soft sigh. "Or not," she said, her tone a little bit lighter now, and Beth snorted before dipping her head.

"Yeah," Beth agreed with a soft laugh, nodding her head. "Or not."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading and please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**As always, thank you so much for your lovely reviews and all of the alerts from everyone who has followed/favourited this story. I really appreciate it!**

* * *

The gunfire that had occurred that night outside of the bar had frightened the people who lived in town just as much as it had frightened Beth, that much was certain. It seemed as though everyone was too scared to even step outside of their homes for any other reason that wasn't absolutely essential - like for work or for school - and Amy, who worked as a cashier at the local supermarket, had told Beth about how her manager was currently considering closing up the store for at least the next day or two because absolutely nobody was coming in to shop, not even to purchase necessities.

Over the course of the last week or so, Beth had heard her fair share of whispers and gossip around town that related to the shooting and the reasons behind it. Beth might have been young, but she wasn't stupid, and she knew full well that most of the people who lived here didn't have the slightest clue as to what had gone on that evening, just like she didn't know, either. Of course everyone could have a guess - and somewhere down the line, one of those guesses would be close to accurate - but that didn't mean that it was true.

Amy was a different story altogether, though, and as sweet as she was, the girl had an awful habit of believing absolutely everything that she heard.

Despite the fact that Amy's parents were retired and living far away somewhere in Florida, Beth's closest friend still didn't have all that much freedom. In fact, Beth would go as far to say that Amy's older sister, Andrea, was far more controlling than her daddy had been before her mama had passed away, and it always seemed as though the older woman wasn't ever willing to allow Amy to do anything that she wanted. Andrea had a good thirteen years on Amy and whilst she didn't have any children of her own, she definitely treated Amy as though she was her daughter.

In all honesty, whilst Beth could perfectly understand her friend's frustrations, she thought that it was nice that Amy had somebody in her life who cared about her so much. Much to Amy's annoyance, Andrea's over-protective nature seemed to be becoming progressively worse as opposed to better, but Beth thought that it made sense considering the fact that their parents had left. Whilst Amy liked to think that she was responsible enough to look after herself, Beth knew her friend well enough to know that that definitely was not the case; and really, Beth had no idea how Amy would even survive if it wasn't for Andrea's guidance.

Smiling softly into the phone as she lay on her back on the double mattress of her bed, Beth began to trace over the subtle pattern of her ceiling with her eyes as she spoke. "I think that it's sweet," Beth said, stifling a giggle at the loud and frustrated sigh that Amy let out from down the other end of the line.

" _Sweet?_ " her friend responded, her pitch suddenly much higher than before and her tone showcasing her irritation. "It ain't sweet, Beth. It's so damn _annoying._ It's a good job that I've been doin' all these shifts for Irma recently, 'cause I have a feeling that there's not a _chance_ that I'll be gettin' to work in the mornin'."

Whilst the reason behind the shooting was still very much unknown, Beth had still heard the words 'territorial' and 'bust deal' being thrown around campus over the last few days. There wasn't really ever much to talk about around town except for a few pieces of idle gossip here and there, so a huge commotion such as this had caused a wave of both excitement and fear to wash over the population of the town. Since it had been accepted that the club - which Beth had recently learned were called 'The Brother's Arms', thanks to her friend Sasha - were involved in the shooting, most people around town (including Amy) had immediately jumped to the conclusion that this issue had arisen because of a rival gang.

Everyone around was theorising about the whole showdown and as much as Beth wished that she could just get on with her life and leave what had happened that night in the past, nobody else in town seemed to want the same thing as she did. The involvement of a rival gang was a theory that did technically make sense, Beth supposed; but unlike her peers - who seemed to be absolutely determined to find out near enough every single detail of what had happened that night and what the reasons for it were - all that she wanted to do was _forget._

And when it came to the events of that night, it wasn't so much the shooting that Beth wanted to forget as it was Daryl Dixon - more specifically, Daryl Dixon's hands and his tongue and his mouth.

(She didn't want to forget them - not really.)

But the blonde had accepted long ago the fact that she would never really understand anything to do with gang matters, so there really was no point in attempting to start to understand them now. Above all else, Beth Greene was a good girl, and she had a feeling that even _thinking_ about that club for too long would leave her with her head well and truly spinning.

* * *

It wasn't as though Beth had necessarily thought that the dreams of him would get any better - well, definitely not after the way in which his hot mouth had been pressed against hers and his strong hands had been gripping tightly at the bare flesh of her hips - but at the same time, Beth had honestly not thought that they would (or even _could)_ actually get worse.

The thought of him was intoxicating, though, and Daryl Dixon had crept his way underneath her skin. The two of them had never even had a real conversation and here she was, lusting over him as though he was some sort of teenage heart-throb.

And maybe he was.

But he wasn't, of course. Daryl Dixon was the Vice President of the local _gang,_ for goodness sake; and as much as Beth was confident that he was hot, she knew that he was also the sort of guy that people crossed the street to get away from. He was the type of man that girls admired from afar - all rough and rugged and something close to _dangerous -_ but never wanted to get themselves too close to.

(Not Beth Greene, though. Because right now, she felt like she would do most anything just to get a little bit closer to him).

The dark expanse of her reasonably sized bedroom was disturbed by a loud gasp that escaped her throat as Beth jumped awake, her eyes impossibly wide and her mouth hanging open as an orgasm took her by surprise. Both of her hands were balled in fists into the bedsheets by her side and her thighs were pressed incredibly tightly together, the muscles in her stomach contracting and relaxing at a quick rate as she rode out the waves of her pleasure.

Small whimpers escaped her mouth as her cum leaked through her underwear and spilled out onto her clean sheets, but Beth couldn't gather much coherent thought - considering the fact that she was currently _having an orgasm_ combined with the fact that she had literally just woken up - in order to keep herself quiet, to keep her moans muffled. It seemed as though her pleasure ran on and on and on, almost as if it would never end (and part of her wished that it wouldn't, as she was quickly becoming addicted to this blissful feeling); and her entire body trembled violently as she came down from her high.

 _This_ was something new. Something that had never happened to her before - not even when she was younger, not even when her hormones were here, there and everywhere. Not even when she had been desperate for release but had had no choice but to go to sleep because her sister had been hovering around in the hallway. Not even when she'd been incredibly close and then had to stop because of some sort of interruption, like the sound of her phone ringing or her alarm going off.

It probably didn't really help that before she could really think too much of it, the dream was floating away in her mind; the fine details of it slipping through her fingers like sand, impossible for her to gather back up. The images of it were grainy in her imagination - the sound of skin slapping against skin and maybe even a hand firm hand roughly pulling at her hair with enough force to snap her neck - and Beth almost cried out in frustration as it disappeared.

But then, before she could think anything too much of it, she was disturbed by the sound of a knock on her bedroom door. This time, Beth's eyes flung wide open for a completely different reason and she quickly jumped up higher in her bed, scrambling to pull the covers over her bottom half as she did so.

It was her father's voice calling out her name as he pushed open her bedroom door that caused Beth to snap properly back into reality, her eyes focusing on the outline of his figure. Her bedroom was in complete and utter darkness, but the dim light from the hallway entered as Hershel stepped over the threshold of her room; and although Beth couldn't quite make out his facial expression, she could just tell that he was a little confused and concerned.

Not drunk, then. For once.

"Everythin' alright?" her daddy asked, and Beth's cheeks were now burning bright pink as she looked right back at him.

It wasn't as though her father could possibly know what had just happened to her body and what was going on in her mind, but still, Beth couldn't help but actually feel a little bit _guilty._ Not that she should, of course, and she knew it; especially after everything that he had put her through over the course of the last year, over everything that he was still putting her through even now.

But even so, that didn't mean that her dad needed to hear her having an orgasm.

Nodding her head quickly, Beth squeaked out a 'yes' in an attempt to reassure her father, but her high-pitched tone and overall strange behaviour just seemed to cause Hershel to be a little bit more suspicious than he had been before. And Beth would never wish for her father to return to the bottle, but she definitely did wish that he was distracted by something else - anything else (except alcohol) - right now.

Her panties were _drenched_ and it was so uncomfortable to sit there speaking to her father in her soaking wet underwear; her juices stuck to the insides of her thighs and on her bedsheets, too. Beth's clit was still swollen and gently throbbing from the aftermath of her intense orgasm, and as much as she her mind was trying its best to concentrate on everything around her (including her daddy), her body was still overcome by the feeling of pure and utter relief.

"Are you sure?" he probed, shuffling as though he was going to take a step further into her bedroom before he hesitated, changed his mind for some unknown reason. Clearing his throat, Hershel stood up a little bit straighter, and Beth didn't need to be able to see her father in perfect light to know the way in which his brilliant blue eyes narrowed in her direction. "I heard -"

"It was a nightmare," she said, quickly interrupting him before he went into too much detail and embarrassed his youngest daughter even further. Her excuse was quick - something that she had just made up right there on the spot - and Beth actually surprised herself at how easily the lie slipped from her tongue. "I... I had a nightmare. I'm fine."

Her words were stuttered and spoken too fast, almost too confidently, even; and Beth just knew that her father didn't entirely believe her. Not that she blamed him for that, because she _was_ lying to him, but what else was she supposed to say? _I'm fine, dad - it's just that I just had a wet dream about a man - who's probably in his mid-thirties, by the way - who I was kissing and grinding against in the back of a bar last week. That was before he went out into the middle of the shooting that his gang was involved in, though, and now I'm_ really _sexually frustrated_.

Instead of saying anything - although Beth had a feeling that he probably really wanted to - Hershel nodded his head at her and began to slowly back out of her bedroom. The blonde didn't breathe as she watched him leave, her heart pounding in her chest loudly as he pulled the door to a shut, murmuring a soft goodnight to her as he did so.

It wasn't until Beth saw that the light in the hallway had been turned off and when she heard the click of her father's bedroom door shutting that she released a shuddering breath, her heart still beating too quickly as she collapsed against her mountain of pillows. She was so, _so_ humiliated by the entire situation, and she couldn't help but groan into the darkness - not out of pleasure, this time - as she pulled the covers over her face.

Maybe she could just stay in bed forever.

* * *

Another few days passed by before Beth saw Daryl Dixon for the first time since the bar, and she was shocked - to say the least - about the fact that she had bumped into him in the local _supermarket,_ of all places.

Really, Beth didn't even know why on earth she was so surprised about the fact that it had been the supermarket that she had seen him. For some strange reason, the blonde had just never really thought to herself too much about the fact that grocery shopping was something that this man - like all other men in town - would actually have to come out and do. Of all of the places that Beth had ever imagined the two of them running into each other; the supermarket had most definitely not been on her list, although she wasn't quite sure why - after all, it was one of the places that actually made the most sense.

Her life was rarely ever simple though, and it rarely ever made sense, either. Today, though, it seemed as though the Universe had decided that it would.

Which was just typical, because her hair was a tangled mess of unruly waves falling down her back and there wasn't even a speck of make-up on her fresh face. At least she was wearing something she considered to be half-decent (a yellow sun dress that fell to the middle of her thighs matched with a cropped denim jacket and a pair of worn white converse sneakers), but it wasn't as though she thought that she looked her best, by any means.

Over the course of the last few weeks, Beth had found herself daydreaming about plenty of scenarios where she would run into Daryl Dixon.

Scenarios where she was always dressed up a lot nicer than this, where she was always wearing her best clothes and her best shoes and always wore plenty of make-up and had her hair styled perfectly. Scenarios where he actually looked up in her direction and noticed her standing there, staring at him, and stared back at her with an equal amount of intensity in his gaze.

Scenarios where Beth was on her way back from college, walking through the centre of town, when he would pull up alongside of her and offer her a lift home on the back of his motorcycle - only to pull over near her home and have his way with her, fast and hungry in the middle of her daddy's long fields. Scenarios where her truck had broken down once again and when she took it to the garage to be fixed, it had been Daryl who offered to work on it for her - only for him to end up taking her then and there, rough and hard against the concrete wall of his bay.

Of all of the things that she had imagined happening between the two of them, Beth had never imagined that she would walk past him down one of the aisles of the supermarket, his eyes too busy skimming over the different bottles of shampoo before him to even bother acknowledging that someone - _her -_ was right there, behind him.

Perhaps it was because of the fact that he had his back towards her that she was suddenly feeling brave - because Beth was usually quite a shy person, and his overwhelmingly intense eyes never really seemed to help her out with that issue - or perhaps it was because of the fact that he hadn't acknowledged her presence, and she really, _really_ wanted him to. Or perhaps she was just being plain weird.

But either way, Beth spoke - her mouth opening and the words tumbling out - before she could even stop herself.

"Spoiled for choice?"

When she looks back upon her words in a few hours (because she really can't stop thinking about their interaction that day), then Beth will acknowledge the fact that as much as her statement was awkward, it wasn't nearly half as bad as it could have been. In fact, it was actually sort of _funny,_ and when she is curling up underneath her covers that night, she'll laugh to herself about it and hope that maybe, wherever he is; he's laughing to himself about it, too.

But in that moment, Beth couldn't help but to be anything but absolutely horrified by the fact that she had even spoken to him.

At the sound of her soft voice breaking the silence, Daryl jumped - actually _jumped,_ even if the movement was only slight - and his head snapped around so quickly that Beth was surprised that his neck didn't break because of it. The thought took her back to the dream that she'd had of him just a few nights before, and if her strange boldness wasn't enough to cause her cheeks to tinge a light shade of pink, then _that_ thought definitely was.

Daryl's deep blue eyes were narrowed when he turned to face her and his shoulders were tense, too; as though his whole posture had gone from relaxed to defensive in half of a second. And there was something about his expression in that moment that had Beth thinking that the older man was about to snap out some sort of sarcastic (and probably quite aggressive) response to her. But as soon as his eyes met with hers, all of his features noticeably softened, and that had Beth feeling something towards him that she can only describe as complete and utter _affection._

It doesn't stop her heart from beating rapidly inside of her chest and it doesn't stop her from holding her breath, either. Nor does it stop her from cursing herself over and over again in her head for even putting herself in this position, for even speaking to him in the first place. The thing is, it's not even as if the two of them know each other - not as though they're friends, or even acquaintances, really (although his tongue _was_ just in her mouth only a week and a half ago) - and now it just seems to be all sorts of painfully awkward.

And for a second, Beth absolutely swears to herself that Daryl Dixon's cheeks are just as pink as her own.

Overall, he didn't seem to be all too bothered by her comment, and she just hoped to herself that he took it to be playful - after all, that was how she intended it to be.

"You sassin' me, girl?" he asked her in his low, gravelly voice; and Beth swallowed down her nerves - although that seemed to be almost impossible - and jutted out her chin almost defiantly in his direction. In her head it is as though there is a mantra occurring; repeating itself over and over again that _she does not know this man._ It's true - Beth Greene does _not_ know Daryl Dixon. She doesn't know where his boundaries or limits lie when it comes to things like jokes and banter. She doesn't know whether she is crossing a line with ever lingering look that she offers to him or whether or not he takes it as her being curious, as her being _flirtatious._

Which she is. Or at least, she intends to be.

Biting back the immediate urge to respond with a stuttered 'no, sir' (like the _good girl_ that she is), Beth allowed her light blue eyes to dance over the bottles and bottles of shampoo that line up the three shelves in an attempt to distract herself from his burning eyes. There aren't all that many bottles and brands to choose from, really, and she notices that one of his large hands - one of the same hands that had been grabbing and pinching at the flesh of her hip - is hovering over a plain white bottle.

It's not a type of shampoo that Beth thinks she would ever really consider purchasing, but she supposed that just looking at the bottle it seems to be a lot _manlier_ than her usual bright pink, strawberry scented option.

Shrugging her shoulders, Beth quips out a soft "maybe", trying her best to sound cool, calm and collected - which honestly, she is _not_ \- as she slowly allowed her gaze to trail back over towards him. And Beth has never been all that glad about the burning heat in Georgia before (mostly because she is so fair and pale and her skin just burns and she sweats something awful in it), but the sight of Daryl Dixon's bare arms on show because of that crippling warmth suddenly makes her incredibly thankful for it.

(She wonders what he wears in winter, and hopes that it's something similar).

Daryl doesn't necessarily smile at her nonchalant response, but Beth immediately notices the way in which his lips quirk upwards ever so slightly at her response - as though he naturally _wants_ to smile, but also as though he is fighting the reaction as best that he can. It might have really just been nothing, but the blonde takes it as a small victory all the same.

Nodding his head in her direction, his deep blue eyes trail over her appearance - lingering on the smooth, pale skin that's on show from her freshly shaved legs - before he lazily picks up the bottle of shampoo that he had been hovering towards. Without giving it much care, Daryl throws the bottle into the cart that is resting beside him, and her light eyes cannot help themselves but to wander over it and take in the contents of it.

It's not necessarily all that shocking to Beth that the cart itself is mostly empty. The basket that she is carrying in her hands (which is actually quite heavy, come to think of it) probably contains more items in it than Daryl's shopping cart does, but she doesn't comment on it - knows that she's not that brave, not now that he is actually facing her direction and his eyes are actually resting on her.

Not wanting to appear as though she is being intrusive or nosey, Beth suddenly stops herself from peering into his cart and her eyes dart back up to his face once again. The blonde tries her very hardest to memorise all of the details of Daryl Dixon's handsome face as best that she can, knowing deep down that she truly never will be able to estimate how long it will be until she sees him again.

Although their general interaction wasn't necessarily filled with life and bubbling conversation, Beth still feels a little bit disappointed that she knows that it has to come to an end. In all honesty, she would absolutely love to stand and talk to him all day, but it isn't as though the man has much to offer her in terms of words and Beth also has a class that she needs to attend in just under two hours.

Not wanting to be the one who is stuck around waiting like the last time, Beth clears her throat and straightens her back, suddenly returning from where she had been lost quite deep in thought and becoming present in the moment once again. "I guess I'll see you around, Daryl," she says; a smile in her voice as she slowly begins to walk past him, her eyes staying locked onto his as she moved.

Daryl then allows himself to smirk at her words, and _goodness,_ she has never seen anyone who looks so sinful and heavenly all at the same time. Just his expression alone makes her want to melt into a puddle on the floor; and once again, Beth's cheeks are burning as she looks directly at him. "Yeah," he says, nodding his head once at her at she passes him. "I'll see you 'round, Greene."

As she walks away from him, Beth uses everything in her power to resist the urge of turning her head over her shoulder and glancing back to take in once last look at him. This man is driving her crazy enough without her going and making it even more obvious to him than it already is; and even though she still thinks to herself that she is stupid and embarrassing and generally just _mad_ for even approaching him today, Beth feels a lot better for getting the chance to see him once again already. These chance encounters are hit and miss, and Beth doesn't know when the next time that she will see Daryl will be, so she takes every single drop of it that she can get and tucks it in tightly to her chest.

It's difficult to not look back at him, especially when Beth can practically _feel_ Daryl's deep blue eyes staring into the back of her as she walks off. As soon as she turns away from the aisle, the blonde breathes out a shaky sigh of relief, but she knows that she isn't safe from him - not even now. If anything, things between the two of them just seem to be getting more and more intense; and the throbbing between her thighs has already started again as she walks towards the checkout despite the fact that she came over the thought of him having his head between her legs just this morning.

Not for the first time in the last few weeks, Beth silently wonders to herself whether she will ever really get enough of this man, or whether he will always be there - whether he is actually there or whether he is just in her mind - to haunt and tease her.

* * *

 **Thank you for reading and please review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**I am never anywhere near as confident writing from Daryl's POV as I am from writing Beth's, but this chapter kind of came to me and I couldn't imagine trying to describe similar scenes from Beth's perspective, so I just went with it. I've looked at it over and over and over but now none of the words make sense at all so if it's a bit of a jumbled mess, then that will explain why.**

 **I always try my best to write my stories differently each time and to explore the characters perspectives as diversely as I can. In this particular story, Beth is a lot more emotionally mature than Daryl; so you might find that chapters written fro her POV are more structured, clear and in a way, simple - at least in terms of expressing that Beth is feeling x because of y, and as a result she thinks/will do z.**

 **Differently, in this fic, Daryl won't have anywhere near as much self-awareness as Beth does and for that reason, chapters written from his perspective might seem a little more messy, complicated and - for want of a better word - choppy. Questions that Daryl's chapters push forward - to both himself and the reader - won't necessarily be answered, and overall I think that writing from his POV will involve a lot more detail when it comes to exploring and understanding different emotions and thought processes.**

 **Anyway, that aside - thank you so much for all of your lovely reviews on the last chapter, and I hope you continue to enjoy this story just as much as I enjoy writing it.**

* * *

Wide blue eyes continually haunted him throughout the day and night, and as fiercely as he wanted her - 'cause _god,_ he really, _really_ wanted her, in every way and position possible - the constant image of her lingering around in his mind was seriously starting to piss him off.

The damned girl seemed to be fucking _everywhere_ in his head, never leaving him alone, even when he was supposed to be concentrating on important shit. The image of her was something that was always present; sometimes smiling sweetly and laughing playfully at him - almost teasingly, too, as though she was reminding him what he couldn't have - and other times moaning and screaming at the top of her lungs.

Daryl didn't have a clue which image he preferred because it changed every time, but now it was all just driving him crazy, and the total lack of control that he seemed to have over his own mind was causing him to be even more of a dick to everyone around him than usual.

Merle had picked up on this frustration within him, that much was clear by his confused looks and seemingly thoughtful glances, but his big brother never said a single word about any of it. Merle didn't even attempt to approach the topic of Daryl's frustration and tension and anger, and there was never any clarifying question, either - no _"are you okay?"_ or " _what's going on with you?"._

And that was fine with Daryl, anyway. Really. Because he didn't expect any of that from Merle - never had and never would. It just wasn't the way that their relationship worked, and as much as Daryl loved his older sibling - because as annoying as he was, the man was his _blood_ \- 'supportive' wasn't necessarily a term that sprung to mind whenever he thought anything about Merle.

His other brother's were starting to notice it, too, because they were similarly offering him the same confused - and hell, sometimes even _concerned_ \- looks whenever he said or did anything that was a little too out of character for him. A little too angry, a little too aggressive. And those words weren't anything that didn't describe Daryl Dixon, because he sure as hell could get angry and aggressive; but the younger of the two brother's had always been smarter than Merle when it came to displaying those emotions.

Apparently not any more, though.

And it was all thanks to Beth fucking Greene.

It had all started out in his dreams, and at least that was one thing that was constant and consistent about all of this - the one thing that he had grown to accept, the one thing that he had actually even come to expect. Because nowadays, it just so happened that - without a doubt - Beth Greene was _always_ present in his dreams.

But then she had started becoming present in his day-to-day life, too. Like some sort of annoying figure on his shoulder who he just couldn't brush away, couldn't get rid of, only Daryl was never sure as to whether this girl was playing the part of the angel or the devil. The blonde tormented him daily - whilst he was at work, whilst he was doing jobs for the club, whilst he was drinking at the bar - and Daryl had no fucking clue how he was supposed to deal with this.

Usually, it was the image of her mop of blonde hair bobbing up and down as she took all of him into her mouth that sprung to mind. Didn't matter whether he was working on a car or whether he was watching his brother's back whilst a meeting went under way or whether he was speaking to some random chick who had thrown herself in his direction. And now that he had heard her voice - now that it wasn't just long, lingering looks at each other - Daryl had started to imagine the sounds that she would make; the noises of her gagging and choking whilst simultaneously humming in pleasure as she attempted to swallow his cock whole.

And hell if that didn't make him want to cum in his pants every single fucking time.

It wasn't as though it ever felt _okay,_ but it seemed to just be easier whenever he was asleep, because the majority of the time he would jolt awake right before he was about to blow his load and instead of just gritting his teeth and carrying on as normal, Daryl could move so that he finished himself off with his hand. Whenever he imagined _her_ with her pretty mouth around him, then he never did last long, and at least he was able to feel some sort of release once he had came.

And in that moment, it actually never did feel wrong - in fact, it always felt so _right._ Like it was completely normal and completely fine for a thirty four year old man to be fantasizing about this young girl that he barely even knew; some innocent farmer's daughter who had a pretty smile and big blue eyes and who looked like she was barely even legal.

The guilty feeling, though - well, that always came _afterwards._ When he was lying on his back with one arm covering his tightly closed eyes, his cum spilled messily all over his lower abdomen and his bedsheets. When he thought to himself about how fucked up this whole thing was; when the knowledge that he had pushed his tongue inside of her mouth and had encouraged her to rub herself against him when he didn't even know how old she was made him feel a little dizzy and pretty damn disgusted at himself.

Because _fuck,_ what if she wasn't even eighteen yet? That would make her literally half his age.

That guilty feeling never did really go away; not unless he was completely lost in mental images of her, and even then it was still sort of present in the back of his mind. For a brief time, it felt so good to achieve his release, to have some sort of pleasure from it all; but that guilty feeling never did leave him - not really - and now, as he wiped down the remnants of himself from his stomach, Daryl wondered to himself whether or not this damned girl would ever really leave him alone.

He wanted her to go away so badly, but then at the same time, he wanted her to stay.

And that confused him more than anything else.

* * *

As a general rule of thumb, Daryl Dixon was an early riser.

Sure, he wouldn't consider himself to be even close to similar to the club's most recent prospect, Zach, who was very much a morning person and just couldn't seem to be able to just shut his fucking mouth - especially at stupid o'clock in the morning, when nobody else really was in the mood for conversation. But he also wouldn't necessarily consider himself to be like Merle, either; who would much rather lie around in bed all morning and not surface from underneath his bedsheets until at least two o'clock in the afternoon.

From the top of his head, Daryl couldn't really list any reasons as to why being an early riser was a negative thing - and hell, if there was anything that he was good at apart from working on cars and fucking up things, then it was noticing the bad side to stuff. But instead, the man found that it just meant that waking up seemed to be a lot easier for him than it was to any of his brothers, and it also meant that leaving his apartment and completing tasks for the club made more sense for him to do - especially the first ones of the day.

Whilst everyone else was fast asleep in either their homes or in the otherwise vacant rooms of the clubhouse, Daryl was up and about, able to get on with any pending tasks - especially the important ones, like meeting with other club leaders to negotiate deals or to receive payments.

Which was also a positive thing, because - believe it or not - Merle was a shit negotiator, and he had a real bad habit of just pissing everyone around him off. That usually meant bad news for the club, so it was also a general rule of thumb that Daryl dealt with these sorts of situations whilst Merle called all of the shots.

It might not have been fair, but it was his life; and Daryl always figured to himself that he much preferred being given instructions and directions as opposed to delegating roles and being a leader, anyway.

Things had turned pretty sour after the infamous shoot-out that had happened little over two weeks ago now (another thing that Merle had started), but it wasn't as though it was completely the club's fault - not really, anyway. Nobody had actually been expecting for The Angels - a rival gang from the outskirts of Florida who usually bought guns from them - to just roll up into the town the way that they had done and open fire on as many people as they could; not really caring about whether or not they injured - or killed - anyone from the club or whether it was just innocent civilians.

Rick had been _pissed_ about it, to say the least; but the shooting had served as a distraction for their small, local police force. In the meantime, it had bought Merle a couple of extra weeks to carry on as normal for the time being - but it was only a matter of days now before something came up and Merle was taken away in cuffs. It wasn't as though his older brother being arrested would be something that Daryl had never seen before, but Merle being arrested for something he was actually innocent of?

Well, that was something that nobody had ever seen coming - not even Merle.

Although there wasn't a lick of evidence to really back up any of Candy's claims, it could still go to court - which was everything that the club didn't want, or need, right now. More bad press to fuel a bad reputation that would simultaneously piss off the sheriff's department and scare more of the people who lived in town. What was worse about it all was that Daryl, along with Rick, was plenty sure that all Candy wanted was a bit of cash from the club. She had liked Merle, always had; and sure, the two of them had fucked a couple of times (Merle's words, not his), but she wanted what the man would never be willing to give to her - a _relationship._

So, there she was. Pressing charges against his big brother for rape. And Merle - stupid and stubborn as he was - refused to give her the money that he knew that she wanted. Refused to give into her, even if it meant more damage to the club's reputation.

 _"Ain't givin' no money to that fuckin' whore,"_ his brother had hissed when Daryl had initially suggested it. _"Not a fuckin' penny. Ain't like I even liked the bitch, ne'er mind_ wanted _her an this shit."_

 _"If ya didn't like her so much, then I ain't got any clue as to why your dumbass slept with her in the first fuckin' place,"_ Daryl had retorted, deep blue eyes narrowed and his annoyance evident in his tone.

It was all pathetic, really, and Merle hadn't even bothered to reply to his younger brother's statement of the obvious before he stormed out of the clubhouse, grumbling something about needing a smoke.

Neither of them had spoken about it afterwards, which was normal for the two of them. Their disagreements were rarely resolved with words; instead, the brother's would just get on with it and get over it, leaving it behind them. Sometimes, anger would still bubble in Daryl's belly about it the same way that it probably did for Merle, but whilst neither would ever really forget - because really, how could they? - nor would they necessarily forgive, they would just leave it.

Not necessarily in the past, but it would still be left, regardless. Not to be dealt with unless something more came of it.

But now, as Daryl sat in the driver's seat of the truck with Zach in the passengers seat beside him at six a.m, he figured that Merle had definitely remembered their disagreement the week before and that his older brother was using this task as some sort of sick revenge on him.

The thing was, Daryl Dixon had completed all sorts of shit tasks for the sake of this club - this club that he loved, this club that he would do anything to protect, because it honestly meant that much to him.

Tasks that were risky and illegal; like dealing guns, like beating a man half to death because he pissed off one of his brother's. Tasks that were dangerous and potentially life threatening; like confronting another unfriendly club about an issue, right after Merle had _really_ pissed them off. Tasks that were a little out of his comfort zone; like setting up 'welcome home' and 'just married' parties, complete with balloons and banners and food.

But heading down to the Greene farm in search of some medicine for Martinez's dog (who, in all fairness, just so happened the be the man's pride and joy) - well, Daryl Dixon had never heard anything quite like it.

And for once in his thirty four years of life, he really wished that he wasn't an early riser.

* * *

The arrival at the farm was awkward, to say the least. Daryl didn't really know the situation with Hershel Greene very well, but after seeing the older man in a few local bars one two many times - and also seeing his youngest daughter come to drag him out of them, too - he figured that alcohol played a pretty big part in his life. Still, the old man was a veterinarian (the only one in town, as a matter of fact), and apparently he was the only person within a thirty mile radius who would stock what Martinez was looking for.

Daryl lazily parked up the truck outside of the big white farm house, not really taking any of it in as he did so. Instead, he kept his head down as he pushed the car door open, and Zach let out a low whistle as they approached the porch steps of it.

"Nice set up, huh?" he said, and Daryl didn't bother to respond, keeping himself quiet - just like he had done the whole journey here. The wooden steps creaked and groaned in protest under his weight as he made his way up them, but he took no notice as he looked up at the front door. "I always wanted a house like this when I was a kid. Always thought it'd be pretty neat, livin' on a farm."

As he knocked on the door three times, Daryl still didn't make any effort to respond to Zach's words. Instead, the older man let out a heavy sigh through his nostrils, his deep blue eyes darting around the porch and briefly taking the space around him in. He supposed that Zach was right; the house was pretty neat, and he could definitely relate to the idea of wanting something like this when he was a kid.

Hell, when Daryl was a kid, he just wanted _anything_ that was different to what he had: a shitty trailer for a home, a mother who was buried six feet under, an abusive alcoholic daddy who beat on him like he was a punching bag and a brother who fucked off at every possible opportunity.

Just as he was about to raise a fist to knock on the front door again, the sound of a key being turned in the lock met his ears and the door opened inwards to reveal the girl who wouldn't stop haunting his dreams. It was around quarter past six in the morning and she looked like she had only just woken up; wearing nothing but a fluffy pink nightgown that fell to the middle of her calves, her face fresh and bare from make-up (although her usually wide and alert blue eyes looked pretty sleepy) and her blonde hair a mess of curls that fell all around her face.

And _christ,_ she was so _perfect,_ and the surprised expression that came over her face at the sight of the two of them stood on her porch made him almost want to laugh out loud.

It was quiet between the three of them for a moment - Beth and Daryl staring intensely at each other and Zach hovering behind Daryl, his brow knotted a little bit in confusion at the silent exchange - before the older of the two men finally cleared his throat and spoke to her.

"Your daddy here?" Daryl asked, his voice thick and rough from lack of use this morning. From where she stood behind the front door, Beth jerkily nodded her head in answer to his question before pulling the front door open much wider, silently inviting the two men to come inside of her home.

It was awkward again for a few more seconds before Daryl finally moved his body, stepping forward with one long stride so that he was over the threshold of the farmhouse. Zach followed closely behind him, the kid always making sure that he had everybody's backs, and he chose to greet Beth with a cheery 'hello'.

The sound of it had Daryl recalling the fact that it had been Zach who had collected the blonde the day that her truck had broken down, and that it had also been Zach who had nervously requested that Daryl work on the vehicle.

 _"I told her that I'd get the best mechanic on the job,"_ Zach had stuttered out in explanation, his usual air of confidence disappearing whenever he was around Daryl. _"An' she seems like a real sweet girl - I went to school with her, a couple o' years ago, an' she was in the class below me. If you don't have that many jobs on, then -"_

Daryl had cut him off there, agreeing that he would get the job done; and in all honesty, it hadn't taken him very long at all. If any of the guys in that shop were going to be working on Beth's car then Daryl wanted to make sure that it was him - just to be confident that nobody fucked it up or was lazy with it - although he didn't bother to explain any of that to Zach.

Daryl briefly allowed his eyes to dance over the family photographs that littered the walls - images of Beth and who he recognised to be her older sister smiling happily at the camera, along with other images of her father and two other family members who he assumed would be her mother and brother - whilst the front door clicked to a shut behind him. At the sound of her feet padding across the floorboards, Daryl spun himself around to face her, only to find that the girl was much closer than he had anticipated her to be.

As he whirled himself around, the blonde took half a step backwards in complete and utter surprise, her sleepy eyes widening slightly before she straightened up her back. The action caused her to stand a little bit taller beneath his gaze, but she was still so small, though - so much shorter than him, and tiny in every possible way. The fluffy pink nightgown was hardly flattering to her figure since it covered the most of her up, but it was pulled in tightly at the middle, reminding him of just how slender her waist was.

The girls cheeks were burning red now, and Daryl had a feeling that she knew exactly what it was that he was thinking about. Surprisingly, the thought didn't embarrass him - instead, it just made him hungrier for her.

Watching her visibly swallow made his mouth actually feel as though it was going dry, and when she opened her own mouth to speak, Daryl couldn't help but to be reminded of how those lips had felt pressed against his. The memory of that night had been playing around in his mind for what had felt like forever at this point, and still Daryl couldn't shake the feeling that he needed to taste her again.

Just once. (Or maybe more. Maybe a lot more.)

"What is it that you want?" Beth asked, her brows arching and her words braver than he had expected them to be. He could tell that the blonde knew exactly what it was that she was asking him, and Daryl wondered whether she wanted him to actually answer that the way he should do in front of Zach or whether she wanted him to answer it with honesty.

But she knew all too well exactly what it was that he wanted. _Her._

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, Daryl pulled out the scrunched up piece of paper that had the name of the medicine that they were looking for scrawled onto it. He passed it towards her, and Beth tentatively took it from his hands, careful to avoid any physical contact with him as she did so - not even allowing her fingers to brush over his. Daryl just knew that she had done it on purpose, but he didn't allow himself to think too much about it and instead watched her as she read over the note.

Beth's brows furrowed together and her head snapped up to look straight at him once again, her light blue eyes narrowed in what Daryl assumed to be confusion.

"What do you need this for?" she asked, holding the piece of paper up slightly so that he could look at it. All teasing had disappeared from her tone now, and instead Beth was completely serious as she spoke directly to him, no hidden meaning behind her words.

Shrugging his shoulders, Daryl's eyes darted over towards Zach - who looked to be more than a little confused himself - before he returned his gaze back to Beth. Usually, he wouldn't just give out information about the club unless it was absolutely necessary, but Daryl figured that telling the girl about a dog couldn't really hurt anyone.

"S'Martinez," he said, as though he actually expected her to know who the man was. Hell, maybe she did - it's not like he was supposed to know. "His dog... It's sick. Ain't old, neither, an' I don't know wha' the hell's wrong with it other than we've gotta get it that medicine."

Cocking a brow at him, Beth glanced down at the piece of paper once again before she looked back up to Daryl. "So you came here for it?" she said, suspicion and curiosity clear in her voice.

Nodding his head, Daryl spoke once again. "Know that your daddy's a vet," he said, eyes locked on Beth's. "Figured he could help us."

It looked as though the blonde wanted to say something more about it all, but instead she bit down on her lower lip and nodded her own head. Without saying another word to either of the men, she quickly made her way up the stairs of the farmhouse, not bothering to look behind her as she did so.

It was only a matter of minutes when it came to waiting for the blonde to re-appear, and she came tumbling quickly down the stairs once she was done doing whatever it was that she had disappeared for. Immediately, Daryl noticed that she was now dressed; having changed out of her fluffy pink robe into a pair of faded blue jeans, worn brown cowboy boots and a plain white tee. Her hair had clearly been brushed and was now resting in a messy ponytail on top of her head, and not for the first time in his life, Daryl wondered whether or not this girl knew exactly what it was that she was doing to him.

He was ninety-nine percent sure that those were the jeans that she had been wearing the night in the bar - and then, as soon as he looked up into her light blue eyes and saw the fire there inside of them, he was suddenly one hundred percent sure that those were definitely the jeans that she had been wearing.

And he was definitely sure that Beth knew just what she was doing to him, too.

"I've got what you need," Beth said, her chin held high as she looked him directly in the eyes. "But I'm not just goin' to give it to you."

Scoffing, Daryl felt a little bit of annoyance bubbling within him, but it was nothing like the usual anger that stirred whenever anyone else provoked him. "Why the hell not?" he asked her, deep blue eyes blazing as he looked over at her.

Seeming to be completely un-phased by his attitude, Beth stood her ground. "Because the dog _clearly_ needs to see a vet," she said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world - and hell, it probably was. "I'm not just gonna give you medicine without knowin' for sure that it's what the animal needs."

Resisting the childish urge to roll his eyes, Daryl instead folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head at her. "Alright," he said, trying not to grit his teeth as he spoke. "What are you suggestin'?"

The soft smile that crept across her face had Daryl feeling a little bit uneasy, and her words made him feel all sorts of uncomfortable - to a point where he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to say.

"My dad can't come with you right now - he... He's _busy._ But I've been studyin' at college to take over the family business," she said, the smile never disappearing from her lips as she spoke - not even when she mentioned her father. "So I guess that _I'll_ be the one comin' with you. So long as you want that medicine, anyway."

* * *

Credit where credit is due - Daryl thought to himself that Beth Greene was going to make one hell of a vet.

He had been wary of bringing her to the clubhouse, that much had been clear from the second that she had suggested it; but the blonde seemed to be anything but nervous or unsure as she quickly got straight to work on examining Martinez's dog. The man was a complete and utter wreck as he paced around the room, clearly panicking as he asked Beth a ton of questions that didn't really make any sense and also mumbling sentences to himself in Spanish.

But Beth was a complete natural with the dog and she was also real good with Martinez, too - reassuring him and explaining everything that she was doing and why. The small blonde did a hell of a better job at calming Martinez down then anyone else could have done, and the thought alone made Daryl actually feel _proud_ of her.

As quickly as that feeling came, he pushed it away, reminding himself that he had absolutely no right to feel this way about the youngest Greene girl.

In the end, it turned out that Beth had been absolutely right in the first place about not just handing over the medicine to the two men because it had been what Martinez said that he needed. Now that he looked back on it, he was surprised that Beth had actually stood her ground to him and Zach - because hell, they could have been all sorts of mad when she refused to just give them exactly what they wanted from her - but he was actually sort of relieved that she had done.

And Daryl had been more than just slightly reluctant about bringing Beth here to see the sick animal - mostly because the thought of being around her for longer than necessary when he couldn't get the mental image of her sucking him and fucking him out of his head made him feel uncomfortable - but Beth had concluded that the dog actually needed three different types of medicine to help coax it back to full health, and also recommended a shit load of stuff to Martinez in order to help prevent any future health problems.

The Latino was a genuinely nice guy, and he thanked her with passion and praise; and Beth had grinned happily when the man had pulled her into him to give her a strong hug. The sight of another man's hands on her bare shoulders had Daryl's body tensing up, but he forced himself to physically relax, reminding himself that this was one of his brothers and that Beth was not his - no matter how much he wanted her to be.

Throughout the duration of her visit to the clubhouse, Daryl had been lingering in the background, observing everything from a distance. The way the her small, nimble hands were gentle and delicate as she examined the dog. The way that her soft, kind voice calmed down both the animal and his friend. It was amazing to see her at work - mesmerising, too - and the sound of her snapping off her gloves caught Daryl's attention, snapping him back into reality.

And then he realised that everyone else was gone, and it was just the two of them now; alone in this small little room. And suddenly he felt like the walls were coming in on him in all directions, and as she made her way over towards where he was stood, Daryl sucked in a deep breath; wanting nothing more than to just bolt and run as far away from her as he possibly could get.

Daryl was stood closely to the trash can in the room, and Beth deposited the used gloves inside of it before he looked up at him, a soft smile on her face as she addressed him. "You just gonna stand there all day?" Beth asked him, all teasing and playful.

It was completely innocent, really, but Daryl's ears still burned red nonetheless.

"Nah," he responded, shaking his head as he looked down to the ground. And damn, it wasn't as though he was stupid - in fact, Daryl usually had a quick quirk for everything that anyone threw at him - but whenever he was around this girl, he seemed to lose all sense of everything.

With a soft smile still resting on her face, Beth didn't move a muscle, instead choosing to stand completely still just a few feet away from him. The confidence that Daryl had possessed when he was drunk had disappeared, and he felt all sorts of nervous and unsure of himself as he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. A part of him wanted nothing more than to cross the room, cup her cheeks with his hands and pull her in for a kiss; but then another part of him still wanted to bolt, still wanted to run.

"Need a ride home?" he heard himself ask her, breaking the silence between them, and Beth blinked a few times before she nodded her head at him in response.

"So long as you don't mind," she responded, that sweet smile still playing on her lips.

Shaking his head again, Daryl tried his best to relax his shoulders as Beth tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ears. "Only got the bike," he said to her, part of him hoping that maybe it would put her off coming back with him, another part of him hoping that she would accept so that he could feel her arms wrapped tightly around his middle.

The image of her hands snaking down underneath his jeans occupied his mind, and Daryl had to bite down _hard_ on his tongue to push it away.

Beth appeared to be a little bit nervous about it - he could tell by the way that she swallowed quickly and widened her eyes - but it obviously wasn't enough to put her off. "That's fine," she said, nodding her head. "I've never rode on a motorcycle before."

He couldn't help himself but smirk at her as he responded to her words. "Guess there's a first time for everythin'," he said, and Daryl was actually taken aback about the fact that he was _flirting_ with her so obviously and openly.

This was a first for him, that was for sure - and it certainly had not been part of his plan when it came to interacting with her. Unlike his older brother, Daryl had never really been all that confident around women, nor did he have a knack for talking to members of the opposite sex. The mechanic highly doubted the fact that he was any good at flirting with _anyone_ he came across - never mind Beth Greene.

But despite the fact that he really was just terrible at this, Beth's blue eyes twinkled a little as she looked up at him, and a slow smile spread across her face. "Yeah," she chuckled out, nodding her head slightly. "I guess there is."

And fucking hell - was she flirting with him right back?

It only took a minute or two more for Beth to tidy everything away before she led the way out of the clubhouse, Daryl following behind her; and he couldn't help himself to but to watch her ass as she walked. The jeans that she wore were sinfully tight against the skin of her ass and her thighs - looking as though they had been spray painted on that morning - and the thought of his hands wandering all over them once again like they did in the bar had him growing hard in his own pants.

Passing her the helmet that he usually wore on top of his own head and watching as she buckled it, Daryl got onto his bike first before nodding his head as a silent instruction for her to follow suit. Her slender arms naturally wrapped around his waist quite loosely, but Daryl knew that she would definitely tighten her hold on him as soon as he set off. He tried not to think too much about how her warm body felt so _good_ pressed up tightly against his, and instead focused on the quickest route that he could take to get to the Greene farm.

Maybe he would go the longer way round, though. Not for any particular reason, of course - just because he didn't fancy riding right through the centre of town with a nervous girl pressed up against him. Going through the woods was probably the better option, anyway, even if it would take a good ten minutes or so longer than the road way did.

"Any tips?" Beth asked him as he started up the engine of the bike with a roar, breaking him out of his thoughts. The blonde was speaking directly into his ear, her lips so close to his lobe in a way that he figured she had to know would drive him crazy, and just the sound of her voice so close had him suppressing a shudder.

Smirking as he revved the engine, Daryl shrugged his shoulders at her. "Yeah," he said, speaking louder than he usually did so that she could hear him over the chugging of the engine, a chuckle in his voice. "Don't fall off."

* * *

 **As always, thank you all so much for reading and please let me know what you think!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Thank you for all of your lovely reviews on the last chapter! Your kind words are always so motivating and have encouraged me to write this chapter as quickly as I possibly could. Granted, it's a little bit shorter than usual and takes place all at once, but I was going to write it a lot shorter and then this sort of just... Happened. I think that it gets kind of fluffy towards the end, which again I wasn't expecting, but hey ho.**

 **I have to admit that I've not even checked over it for spelling/grammatical issues so feel free to point any out to me. None of my fics are beta'd so all of the mistakes are mine.**

 **Hope you enjoy having a further insight into the inner workings of Daryl Dixon's messy mind!**

* * *

Giving the girl a ride home had been a fucking bad idea.

In Daryl's defence, he really had just wanted to make sure that - more than anything - Beth got home without any trouble. The town that they lived in might not have been anywhere near as risky as living in Atlanta, where the crime rate was much higher, but Daryl knew much better than the majority of the folk who lived round these ends that there were still plenty of bad people lurking around. Men who were just waiting for an opportunity to pounce, not always in search of just money - and despite the fact that he barely even knew her, the last thing that Daryl wanted was for anything bad to happen to Beth.

Especially because of him.

Considering the fact that the blonde had gone out of her way to come down to the clubhouse so that she could do one of his brother's a favour, Daryl reasoned with himself that giving her a ride home was an appropriate way to say thank you - especially since he would never be able to find the words to actually say that to her.

(Sometimes, Daryl couldn't help but to envy men like Martinez who found it so _easy_ to express their thoughts and emotions. Hell, even Merle did a much better job of communicating with other people than he did, and the pair of them had grown up with the same shitty excuse of a pa in the same shitty excuse of a home.)

There were several reasons as to why Daryl had opened his big mouth and offered Beth a ride home, but none of them had even involved the thought of having her pressed so closely against him for the entire journey. Obviously.

As they passed through the middle of the woods (where it was completely and utterly deserted), the fantasy of bringing the bike to a screeching halt and bringing the pair of them down to the floor together became increasingly tempting. He knew the woods like he knew the back of his hand, and he knew it much better than he knew the roads in town, too, so Daryl didn't have to take in much of their surroundings to know where they were.

It was a good thing that by this point in his life, riding his bike was like second nature to him, otherwise the distracting thoughts of all of the things that he could do with Beth right here in the middle of the woods would have definitely caused him to lose control. Just imagining how she would feel if her slender body was pressed underneath his own against the dirty floor or how she might feel with her legs wrapped around his middle and her back pressed up against the uneven bark of a tree - not unlike the way that he had pinned her against the wall of the bar - had Daryl shaking his head, trying to snap back in reality and not cause them both to have an accident.

Daryl Dixon sure as hell was no gentlemen, but he had been determined to be at least somewhat half-decent towards this innocent girl who constantly seemed to cross his path. Yet here he was; thinking to himself that he was concerned about the possibilities of roaming men in town who might have had more than one idea on what to do with her if they had the opportunity to, and he was clearly no better. If anything, Daryl thought to himself that Beth was safer being anywhere but close to him.

And yet here _she_ was, with her skinny arms wrapped tightly around his waist and her head resting against his shoulder as he drove her home and she drove him wild.

Every time that Daryl sped up a little bit and caused the wind to hit her face in a way that surprised her, Beth would squeal loudly and cling to his body just a little bit tighter. It was probably a little cruel of him, but every time that he heard her make that noise, Daryl couldn't help but grin wickedly. It had been such a long time since he felt like this around anyone - so damn _free -_ and as much as he tried his hardest to keep his guard up around everyone, with her, things just seemed so easy.

So without even giving the action any thought, Daryl revved the engine a little bit harder, something close to laughter escaping his lips when she let out another high-pitched squeal and burrowed herself further into his shoulders. This behaviour was so different for him, and despite the fact that Daryl felt completely unlike himself, he couldn't help but genuinely enjoy it.

None of it lasted very long, though, because before Daryl could even register what it was that he was doing, he was pulling up outside of the Greene family farm house. As soon as Daryl shut off the engine to his bike, the happy smile that had been resting on his face disappeared, and he shrunk into himself once again. His brows knotted together and his thin lips formed into a hard line as he stared directly ahead of him, not bothering to make a responding sound when Beth giggled from behind him.

Slowly, the blonde unwrapped her arms from where they had been tightly wrapped around his waist (and he tried his hardest not to miss the contact). He heard the soft click of the helmet being undone and then she playfully placed it on his own head, still giggling quietly to herself, before she shakily climbed off from the bike. The blonde stumbled slightly as she pulled one of her legs over it, and the movement snapped him back into reality; his hands instantly reaching out to grab at her hips in an attempt to steady her, feeling all sorts of awkward as he did so.

It had been all well and good when Beth hadn't been able to see how much he had been enjoying himself with her, but now that the two of them were like this - standing face to face, with her directly on him and watching everything that he did - Daryl couldn't help but feel reluctant in allowing Beth to have too great an effect on him.

"Thank you for the ride," Beth said, sounding a little breathless as she spoke. Still, her voice was sweet - much more so than his was - and at the sound of it breaking the silence between them, Daryl couldn't help but jump a little bit, dropping his hands from her hips as though the contact with her had actually burned him.

Touching her was almost as bad an idea as giving her a ride was - if not worse.

The older man twisted himself on the bike, swinging both of his legs around it so that his body was facing towards her now, but he didn't bother to make any attempt to stand up. "S'nothin'," he mumbled to her, suddenly feeling all sorts of claustrophobic - like she was stood far too close to him and invading his personal space, despite the fact that he rationally knew that she wasn't.

His breaths were coming out quite heavy at this point, and by the way that her fair eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, Daryl bet to himself that the girl had definitely noticed his quick change in attitude.

"Do you wanna come inside?" Beth asked him, her light blue eyes scanning over his whole body as she spoke those words, as though she was literally drinking the whole of him in. He was honestly quite surprised that she was even bothering to extend any sort of invitation to him considering the fact that he had been so cold towards her all of a sudden. It only served to make him realise just how much of a better person this girl was than him. "I can fetch ya somethin' to eat, if you want."

Daryl naturally couldn't help himself but to consider her offer - 'cause _hell,_ it sure would be nice to go inside of that house with her and it just be the two of them this time - but he shook his head from side to side after just a brief few seconds of thinking over it. As much as he wanted to accept her invitation, Daryl knew that going inside of that house again would just be asking for even more trouble than he was already in.

No matter how hard he tried to resist her drawing him in and no matter how bad of an idea he knew that it was to just look at her, Daryl couldn't seem to be able to get himself to stay aware from Beth Greene. It was all just a disaster waiting to happen, he _knew_ it, and Daryl had a pretty good idea that stepping over the threshold of her home would most definitely be his demise.

He wanted her, though. Hell, he really, _really_ wanted her - maybe even more than anything or anyone he had ever wanted before.

Instead of accepting her offer, Daryl just silently shook his head from side to side and stared down at the ground below him, scuffing his boots against it as he did so. Beth let out a shaky breath of air - not quite a sigh, but still _something -_ before she responded. "Okay," she said, her tone still bright, but Daryl could immediately tell that she was disappointed by him declining her. "Maybe some other time, then."

His eyes darted up to face her - just for a second - and the sad look on her pretty face was enough to break him down. This time, Daryl nodded his head at her, although he made sure that he was looking anywhere but her eyes (mostly out of fear that he would completely change his mind and just accept her original offer). "Maybe."

Daryl's simple response seemed to overwhelmingly please her, if the bright smile on her face was anything to go by. And sure, Daryl thought that it looked a hell of a lot better than the frown had done, but as Beth beamed as him like he had just handed her the whole world on a plate and told her that it was hers to keep, he couldn't help but feel even more uncomfortable than he had done before. It was _that_ look that made him feel all sorts of guilty, too - because of all of the people that Beth Greene should be smiling at like that, it should not have been him; some no-good, dirty red-neck biker.

And it didn't even matter what he wanted to do for this girl - no matter how badly he wanted to keep her safe, to make sure that she didn't get hurt, to make sure that she was _his_ \- Daryl Dixon was not a good guy, and the last thin that he needed to go and do was ruin some good girl. His older brother had done it countless times before, and each time Daryl had watched it all build up and ignite from the sidelines, and every single time it ended in disaster.

It was never Merle who gave a shit in the end, though - it was always the girl. Always the girl who was left damaged and broken, always the girl who was left in pieces.

And that was definitely one thing that Daryl Dixon was not prepared to do to Beth Greene.

It wasn't as though it was unlike him to be brooding, but it was definitely unlike him to be unaware of what was going on around him. The man was so caught up in his own sulky thoughts that he didn't even notice the girl taking a few steps closer towards him until it was too late.

Perhaps it was purely out of instinct that his big, tanned hands moved to rest on either side of her jean-clad thigh when she stood directly in front of him, settling herself between his parted legs. Despite the fact that he was perched on the seat of his bike and she was stood up with her back completely straight, Beth was only just an inch or two taller than him; and the height difference between them both was something that he found himself most definitely liking.

Daryl's chin tilted upwards so that he could get a better look at the girl who had bravely stepped into his space, and not for the first time he thought to himself that Beth Greene really was something else. He immediately noticed the lazy smile that played out on her lips, and her light blue eyes were twinkling with what he could only think was mischief before she ducked her head down and came in closer towards him.

Daryl froze up at the close proximity of her as her plump lips crept closer towards his own. He just about made out the way that she licked her bottom lip before she completely closed the distance between them, moving at the last second so that she was pressing her lips against the corner of his mouth with a gentle amount of pressure. His body stiffened as she lingered, the kiss lasting a couple of seconds longer than necessary before she chose to pull away from him ever so slightly.

The two of them were still so close to one another that their noses were almost touching, and all of his previous thoughts of resistance were quickly thrown to the back of his mind, much like they always were whenever she completely took over his mind in his fantasies. As much as he had been wanting to get away from her - for her own sake and sanity as much as his own - Daryl was only a man, and he couldn't quite resist the temptation of her lips being so close to his own.

And who knew if he would ever get this opportunity again? He had been so sure that their heated kiss at the bar would be the only one that the two of them would ever share, but now that they were here...

Daryl followed her lead, his mouth chasing hers, and his eyes stayed open long enough to note the triumphant smirk that took over her features as he moved in to kiss her before they fluttered to a close along with her own. His bold actions took him by surprise, and Daryl didn't have the first fucking clue as to how the hell he had ever worked up the courage to actually kiss her without being completely intoxicated, but he tried not to dwell on it too much and instead just focused on the pleasurable sensation of having her mouth pressed against his own.

He kissed her harshly, his tongue probing into her mouth almost instantly and causing her to gasp out loud. With a new found confidence, the youngest Dixon brother smirked against her lips as he roughly explored her, trailing his hands up and down the sides of her thighs a few times before he finally gave in to his instinct and tucked them underneath her white tee.

At the feel of his hands wandering under her shirt and squeezing perhaps a little too harshly at her hips, Beth let out a little yelp - a clear mix between pain and pleasure - and her skin prickled with goosebumps as she shuddered. After a while of quick, passionate kisses, Beth allowed her hands to rise up from her sides and cup Daryl's jaw, and he hummed in approval as she opened her mouth up wider for him.

When he suckled on her bottom lip, Beth let out a long, low groan - a noise that he was pretty sure that he had never heard from her before, not even that night in the bar - and he couldn't help but do it again, this time sinking his teeth into it as he did so. Once again, the blonde shuddered in his arms, wincing slightly - but nowhere near enough to cause him to believe that he was actually hurting her, to think that she actually wasn't enjoying what he was doing to her.

At some point or another, one of them pulled back and broke the kiss; and Beth moved to rest her forehead flat against his. Daryl's hands didn't move from her sides and his fingernails still dug harshly into the skin of her hips, but it didn't seem as though Beth cared much about it as her chest heaved up and down, her breathing completely unsteady. His mind was hazy whilst he came down from the high that had been kissing her, but a mantra that sounded something close to _whatthefuckareyoudoing_ repeated over and over again in his head.

"Better get goin'."

This time he was the one breaking the silence that had fallen between them, gently removing his hands from where they had been digging in at her hips and allowing them to fall back to his sides. Nodding her head, Beth sucked in a long, deep breath before she allowed her own hands to mimic his. Taking a step backwards, Beth stood up straight and cleared her throat, her eyes glossed over from what Daryl assumed was lust, much like his own.

Just before the girl turned around to face her house, he spoke up once again. "How old are you, anyway?" he asked her, and the cocky smile that she offered him as soon as the words had fallen from his lips didn't annoy him in the same way that it would had she been anyone else. Whatever it was that had been building between the two of them was playful, at least - that much Daryl knew; and it wasn't as though he was going to start getting pissed off at the girl when he was pretty sure that she was flirting with him again.

"How old do you _think_ I am, Mr Dixon?" she asked as she began to walk backwards in the direction of her house, her eyebrows arched as she looked over at him.

Unsure of what to say to that (because he mostly didn't want to offend her, but at the same time he was pretty damn sure that she knew she had a baby face), Daryl let out a heavy sigh and ignored the way that she had teasingly addressed him. "Gotta be at least eighteen, girl," he said as he scratched the back of his head, speaking up a little louder so that she could hear him as she backed away.

He fucking _hoped_ that she was at least eighteen, anyway, or he was sure as hell screwed.

(Come to think of it, he was screwed either way.)

The blonde let out a giggle before she nodded her head up and down. "I'm twenty one next month," she informed him, and Daryl physically relaxed his posture at that. At least _that_ was something.

Letting out a shaky chuckle, Daryl dropped his head down so that he was looking at the floor before he shook it back and forth. "Feel better now?" she called to him, and when he looked back up at her he could still notice the twinkle in her eye despite the fact that she was getting further and further away from him and closer to her home.

"Yeah," he said, his tone sarcastic as he moved to straddle the bike once again. "Somethin' like that, anyway."

No more words were said between the two of them as Daryl started up the engine of his bike and drove away, but he didn't actually leave the premises until he was sure that Beth had gone inside of her house. Confused didn't even begin to cover how he was currently feeling; after all, he had sworn to himself with so much determination that he wasn't going to get involved with this tiny slip of a thing; but then it hadn't really taken much for her to convince him otherwise, had it?

As he quickly made his way back to the clubhouse - taking the road way this time - all that Daryl could confirm in his mind was that he was well and truly _fucked_.

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 **Thank you for reading and please review!**


	9. Chapter 9

**This story is rated M for a number of reasons, not just because of sexual situations. It is based around a biker gang and there _will_ be violence - both hints to it and actual descriptions of it - and probably situations and scenarios that might be trigger for some people. From this chapter onwards you can expect more descriptions of violence and stressful situations, so if that's not your sort of thing, then this is your warning.**

 **(Sorry, I don't really know what else to say or how else to describe it without giving** _ **all**_ **of my plans away, so excuse me if it seems like I'm being really vague.)**

 **Also I just wanted to mention that this time of year is crazy for me because I work part-time in retail, and since I'm off University for the next few weeks, I'm working non-stop. Today is my last day off work before Christmas and I'm doing 12 hour days from here on out so please bare with me over the next few days before I have time to update this fic along with Clean and A Stranger, A Suitor.**

 **I'm not sure whether or not this will be my last update on this fic before Christmas, so if it is, I hope you all have a lovely day and get everything that you've been wishing for!**

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"What do you mean, you don't have his number?"

Beth let out a long, dramatic sigh as she seated herself down at one of the first empty tables that she saw. Around this time of year, the library tended to be constantly heaving with stressed out students who were panicking about all of their up-coming deadlines; so Beth grabbed the opportunity to seat herself down somewhere that wasn't the floor.

In an attempt to distract herself from Amy's questioning (the blonde had been interrogating her about Daryl Dixon for at least a good half an hour now), Beth began to rummage through her bag in search of materials that she might need to help her study. Alongside the fact that she had four assignments due in as well as her ten thousand word research project, Beth also had three exams to study for; and whilst the blonde was sure that it would all be worth it in just a few more months when she could finally say that she was a veterinarian, all of the pressure was currently wearing her down.

Whilst Amy sat herself down directly across from her, Beth heaved out a thick notepad that was overspilling with papers and placed it down in front of her. It wasn't as though Beth was intending to be rude towards her friend by ignoring her line of questioning, but in all honesty, Beth had a lot of things to worry about right now, and her priorities had to be straight: she couldn't spend all of her free time worrying about Daryl Dixon.

Unfortunately, Amy didn't seem to appreciate the fact that Beth had a lot to think about, and when she finally looked up to lock eyes with Amy, she could tell that her friend was not at all amused.

"What?" Beth asked, attempting to seem as innocent as possible.

In all honesty, Beth really didn't have a clue as to why Amy was so bothered about all of this - after all, it was her life that would be spent pining after Daryl Dixon, not Amy's.

Cocking a brow at her, Amy moved to slouch backwards against the wooden chair that she was sat on and folded her arms across her chest in a manner that was somewhat defiant. The two girls sat in silence staring straight at one another ( _without_ blinking) for a good thirty seconds or so before Beth finally cracked, shuffling awkwardly in her seat.

"I don't know what you want me to say to you," Beth admitted, choosing to open up her notepad and avoid eye contact with Amy as she spoke. "I have so much work on right now. I need to be thinking about my exams, not about whether or not he's been shot today."

Her voice was laced with sarcasm, and it was obvious from Amy's unamused expression that she knew her friend much better than that. In all honesty, Beth did find herself having a little bit of a soft spot for the biker; but it was nothing more than that - more so, it _couldn't_ be anything more than that. All that she had to do was look at herself and look at the women who spent their time hanging around all of the men that were in the Brother's Arms to know that she was not the type of girl that Daryl Dixon was looking for.

For once, Amy didn't say a word, and Beth knew that it was because she didn't believe anything that Beth had just said to her. "It's not like I even _know_ him -"

Interrupting her sentence with a snort, Amy rolled her eyes and shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips as she looked straight over at Beth. "Yeah, well, you knew him well enough to shove your tongue down his throat, though. _Twice._ "

Amy didn't seem to be at all concerned about how loud she was speaking - in the _library,_ of all places - and Beth's light blue eyes instantly flew open in panic as she realised that absolutely anybody could be listening in on this conversation. "Amy!" Beth gasped, her cheeks flushing pink in embarrassment as she whirled her head around in every possible direction to check that nobody had overheard.

It wasn't completely unlikely that one of her tutors could be lurking around, looking for books to read up on or even doing some work of their own, and Beth was no stranger to Amy embarrassing her in front of other people. Seeming to be completely unapologetic, though, Amy just chose to shrug her shoulders.

"I'm just statin' the obvious," she responded, watching as Beth shuffled through all of her scattered notes. Usually, Beth was a lot more organised than this, but there was just something about Monday's that had her feeling all over the place, and she had been in such a rush this morning that she hadn't had any time to get a cup of coffee before her class started.

"Isn't it obvious that I don't want to talk about it?" Beth responded as she looked down at her notes, and even though she meant what she said sincerely - because she really did _not_ want to talk about this when she should be concentrating on her assignments - her tone was still teasing and a little playful.

No matter how annoying she could be whenever a situation involved a member of the opposite sex, Beth still absolutely adored Amy, and she knew that her friend's intentions were always pure and good - even if she didn't necessarily go about things the right way. The girls were best friends and had been since the two of them were tiny; and if there was anyone in the world that Beth could confide in about anything, then it was Amy.

Shaking her head from side to side, Amy smirked in Beth's direction before she moved to pull out her own notebook from her bag. "Fine," she said, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "I'll drop it."

Nodding her head once, Beth finally found the notes that she had been looking for that she had made in her 9 a.m class that morning.

"I still think that you should just sleep with him already, though."

* * *

Despite the fact that Beth had been able to drive since the age of sixteen - her older brother had unofficially taught her how to drive a couple of years before that (after all, they had grown up on a farm) - the combined cost of gas and parking on campus meant that driving to college was completely out of the question for her unless it was absolutely necessary, which it rarely was. Instead, Beth had to ride the bus; which thankfully only took around fifty minutes to take her from her home town to the college campus and back, and it only cost three dollars a day, too.

There were actually quite a few goods point about catching the bus to college, and one of them included the fact that she could sit down and do her work - either finish off bits of an assignment or read up on some articles before class - whilst travelling. As far as Beth was concerned, there was nothing worse than knowing she had work to finish off and being stuck in the drivers seat of the car; so she revelled in the fact that she could complete odd bits and pieces whilst she was on the bus.

One of the cons to it was the fact that she had a good twenty minute walk home from where the bus station was located in the centre of town. Now that summer was approaching, it wasn't half as bad; but it was still usually quite dark by the time that the bus pulled up, and when Beth actually made it home (mostly some time after seven), it was pitch black outside.

The walk home from the bus station was usually as fine as it possibly could be. Given the fact that this was a small town, the streets were usually deserted around this time, and the roads were void of vehicles since practically all of the stores in town were shut (except for the local supermarket, which closed at eight thirty). Admittedly, it was eery walking through the quiet town in the darkness; but mostly, the walk was quite peaceful, and it was nice to be able to have some quiet time to herself - especially after a long day at college.

Tonight, though, Beth found that a horribly feeling had settled itself in the pit of her stomach almost as soon as she had stepped off the bus and into the fresh air. Not the type of person to push away her emotions, Beth kept herself alert and aware as she began to walk home - choosing not to put in her headphones and listen to the music from her phone - and all that it took was precisely seven minutes before Beth was confronted by a man that she did not recognise as a local.

The lighting on the streets was incredibly poor, and given that the houses were quite spread out, there really was absolutely nobody around as Beth walked down the long road that led to where she turned up to the farmhouse. In the distance, she could make out a figure lurking underneath a street light, and as soon as she spotted him crossing over to her side of the road and making his way towards her, she had started to panic.

Maybe it was just the bad feeling that she had in her stomach, but there was just something so _off_ about the man who was making his way towards her, and as he got close enough so that Beth could begin to recognise a few details about him, she realised that she had been right to be wary in the first place. From the black patch that he wore over one of his eyes (that was more creepy than anything else) to the smirk that didn't seem to fall from his face as he got closer and closer to her, everything about his presence made her want to bolt.

The problem was that even if she did that, he looked like the type of man who would chase her; and besides, no matter how much she thought that he seemed like a creep, Beth figured that there was still a possibility that she was just being a little too harsh and a little too judgemental of this stranger.

(Turns out that she wasn't.)

As he got closer and closer towards her, the man slowed down his walking pace; but Beth didn't bother to mimic his actions. Instead, she carried on walking at the same speed that she had been doing, if not even just a little bit quicker than before, all in the hopes that maybe he would just leave her alone after all. One of her hands was gripping tightly to her bag - so tightly in fact that her knuckles had turned a bright shade of white - and the other was clenched by her side, not quite as tightly, but still clenched all the same.

For a moment, Beth thought that she was actually going to come out of all of this unharmed; but just as the blonde was about to pass the man with the eye patch, he side-stepped so that he was standing directly in front of her. His movement was sudden and quick and it caused Beth to come to a standstill just from the shock of it (even though a part of her had been expecting for him to do something similar), and he was now blocking the whole path in front of her, effectively stopping her from walking straight past him.

 _Shit._

Stopping dead in her tracks, Beth light blue eyes instantly flickered from where they had been staring straight ahead of herself and met with his one, and the blonde tried her best not to let an ounce of worry show on her face. Her mama had always told her that she was like an open book; that her expressions always showed her true feelings, and not for the first time in her life, Beth tried her hardest to keep that as tightly under her control as she possibly could.

Perhaps if he thought that she wasn't afraid of him - perhaps if he thought that she was strong and bold and confident, just like her older sister would be in a situation like this - then maybe he would leave her alone.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

One of the perks about living in a small town was that even though Beth didn't know everybody on a personal level (and goodness, she wasn't some old gossiping lady - she really wouldn't want to know everyone so intimately), she still knew _of,_ or had at least seen, most of the people who lived here wandering around every now and again. It meant that immediately, Beth could tell that this man was not local to the area since he was completely unfamiliar to her, and from the smug look that he wore on his face, Beth had a feeling that this guy was anything but good news.

Visibly swallowing, Beth tried her best to remain confident and brave as she stood up a little bit straighter, pushing out her shoulders and channelling Maggie in an attempt to find some real self-belief that might just help her get out of this situation. "Can I help you?" Beth asked, her tone dry as she stared straight at the man, and Beth was actually surprised at herself - and pleased, too - that she had managed to get the words out to him without even stuttering over her words or having her voice breaking.

Unfortunately, she just seemed to be amusing him - if the way that his smirk slowly changed into a twisted grin was anything to go by, anyway. The sight of his teeth made her feel even more uneasy than she had been doing before, and Beth continued to attempt to stand her ground, but she was suddenly aware of just how much taller and broader this stranger was compared to her.

"My, my," the man said, his grin growing impossibly with every second that passed. Beth couldn't manage to place his strange and unfamiliar accent, and if it hadn't been clear to her before, then it was definitely obvious now that he had spoken that this man was not local to the town. "Aren't you a little spitfire?"

His sarcastic use of the word _little_ was all sorts of condescending and the sound of it immediately caused her to frown, but the stranger was evidently not at all phased by her attitude. Chuckling to himself, the man shook his head from side to side as he looked over her; his eyes trailing up and down her body in a way that made Beth's ears burn bright red.

And then, after a long second or two, his grin fell from his face - like a spell had been broken, like the mask that he wore had been ripped off. Suddenly, his eye seemed to turn much darker, and the man became even more intimidating as he stared down at her with his lips pursed in a straight line, his expression stern.

When he spoke again, Beth's heart almost stopped beating in her chest.

"You're Dixon's old lady," he said to her, no sense of amusement evident in his tone. His choice of words had caused Beth's whole body to tense up, and even though she wasn't guilty of what he was accusing her of - she had watched enough TV shows and films to know what that word meant, and she certainly was _not_ Daryl Dixon's 'old lady' (hell, she didn't even have a tattoo _anywhere)_ \- she could tell that her reaction to his statement had confirmed his suspicion.

There was something in his eye that unnerved her more than anything else had done before, and Beth took a small step backwards as she shook her head from side to side. The blonde still attempted to stand her ground, but her voice wavered this time when she spoke.

"I'm not anybodies anything," she told him, and god, it was the _truth._

Still, the man just laughed.

Everything from then onwards seemed to happen so quickly that it was all just one big blur.

Before Beth could even blink, a large hand was clamping over her mouth from behind, and her light blue eyes widened dramatically as she attempted to let out a cry; but the sound was muffled against the sweaty palm. She was being pulled close to someone - a hard body that she didn't know - and a strong arm wrapped tightly around her waist, trapping her against their chest.

Her arms were pinned tightly in place - one still gripping to her bag, the other now pressed into her side - so that Beth couldn't even try to attempt to fight her way out of the unknown man's grip, and although she wiggled her body around in a weak attempt to struggle, Beth knew that her attempt to escape from the person's tight grip was absolutely pointless.

The man with the eye patch stood calmly as he watched the whole interaction with a smirk on his lips. It was only when Beth had finally given up struggling against the stranger that the man finally responded to her previous statement. "Yeah," he said, laughter in his voice as he looked her directly in her watery eyes. "You are."

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 **Thank you for reading and please review!**


	10. Chapter 10

**You are all so kind to me and I honestly adore reading all of your reviews. I know for a fact now that this is the last update I will be able to give you before Christmas and please ignore any obvious mistakes - I've not had chance to check over this chapter because I've written it all in the space of an hour or so, and consider it to be a gift for all of the amazing and wonderful reviews you left for me.**

 **Merry Christmas!**

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Perhaps it's ironic - a little bit _funny,_ in a sick and twisted sort of way - that she stumbled upon Daryl Dixon just under an hour after she had stopped silently begging for him to come and find her, to take her home.

It wasn't as though Beth was naive enough to have ever expected Daryl to play the role of some sort of knight in shining armour; a Prince Charming character with an overwhelming hero complex and a huge ego to boot. It had been obvious to her from the minute that they had locked eyes with one another across a dark and smoky bar that Daryl Dixon was anything but _soft,_ and he was hardly the type of man who would - or maybe even could - rescue her. In the few times that they had met, Daryl had just never seemed as though he was that way inclined whatsoever; and as far as Beth was concerned, that was absolutely fine.

It wasn't as though she found herself being stuck in a 'damsel in distress' situation on a regular basis, anyway.

Still, regardless of what she had known to be fact from the minute that she had seen him, Beth couldn't help the fact that she had invested so much _hope_ into this man as she prayed that perhaps he would play that role - just this once, just for her - over the course of the last forty eight hours or so.

Because it had to have been coming up to nearly three days since she had been snatched away from the side of the street as she made her way home from college. Despite the fact that her father was a confused and deteriorating alcoholic, Beth knew that he still loved his youngest daughter very much and that he would have been at least somewhat concerned about her whereabouts over the last few days.

But whether or not Hershel Greene had been making a conscious effort to get into contact with her in her absence or whether or not he would have reported her as missing to any of the local authorities - well, that was just a completely different story.

It wasn't as though either of her siblings found themselves having regular contact with their father, too; and considering the fact that it was perfectly normal for them all to not speak to each other for a few days here and there, Beth doubted that they would really be concerned about her whereabouts just yet. After the way that Hershel had behaved towards both himself and those around him since Annette's death, both of the older Greene children had given up on their father; deciding that the man was too far gone to help or to save.

Beth always kept it in her mind that her daddy had a problem - he had _always_ had a problem, he had just gotten better at managing it for a while - and the mantra of _'we all grieve in different ways'_ played on repeat in her mind as she battled with him on a daily basis to help him fight his addiction. The whole thing was exhausting and it was draining, but that man was her _father -_ her kin, her flesh and blood - and no matter what Shawn or Maggie wanted to do about it all, Beth knew in her heart that she would never give up on him.

The last few days had been absolute hell for her, though, and the men who had taken her away had been worse than any of the evil characters that she had ever read about in novels or seen in any movie. They were aggressive and harsh and rude; locking her inside an old, damp and abandoned warehouse, bounding her by the wrists and ankles to keep her pressed firmly against the piping of the room. None of the men even bothered to flinch or pretend to feel uncomfortable every time that they tormented her or raised a hand to her, and the whole time that she had been within their presence had been a complete and utter nightmare turned real.

As soon as they had let her out - yeah, after all that, they literally _let her walk free -_ Beth had sobbed in pure and utter relief and had ran as fast as she possibly could.

Over her few days in the warehouse, Beth had come to realise that the man who was in charge - the tall skinny one with the eye patch whose name she still did not know - didn't ever really do anything for himself. Instead, the men who he had working for (or with) him acted as though they were his slaves, carrying out every single command and order that he barked in their direction and making sure that they did exactly as he said as accurately as they possibly could, down to the last detail.

And _wow_ , they just loved to smack her.

At first, the blonde had put up what she considered to be a strong and stubborn fight in protest against them. Whenever they touched her, she would squirm, whenever they moved towards her she would kick or buck wildly - but every time that she reacted in such a manner, it seemed as though the men became impossibly _worse._ By putting up a fight, Beth just seemed to be encouraging them to continue the way that they were, and that realisation alone was enough to encourage her to put a stop to her behaviour.

It didn't take long for Beth to understand that these men desperately wanted information from her - important information, _'classified'_ information - regarding The Brother's Arms. They had questions (so, _so_ many questions) about Daryl and his older brother and his biker club - _'where do they store the guns?'_ or ' _why don't you tell us a little bit more about the one you're_ fuckin, _huh?' -_ but they never attempted to answer any of her own - _'why won't you just_ listen _to me?'_ or _'don't you get that I don't even_ know _him?'_

More than anything, the whole situation was frustrating because no matter how terribly Beth wanted to actually give them an answer just to make their torture _stop -_ just to make their wandering hands pry away, to encourage their slaps to not be so hard and their punches to not be so forcefully thrown - she couldn't, because she honestly didn't know shit. There was absolutely no information whatsoever stored inside of her brain regarding the club or the man who she barely even knew; and after almost three days worth of swearing to all of the men that she didn't know anything, as in literally an-y-thing, it finally seemed like they might have finally accepted the fact that she had been telling the truth.

Their realisation came at a price, though - and that price included her standing topless in the middle of a room filled with seven men; men who had bruised and beaten her, men who had taunted her and tormented her - men who had obeyed their leader's commands. And it was only when their leader stood in front of her with a sharp knife pointed at her lower abdominal area that she finally allowed herself to completely break down, and it was only when Beth sobbed loudly into the small room and swore over and over again that she didn't know anything with a blade pointed at her stomach that any of the men actually believed that she really was innocent in all of this.

They didn't apologise to her (not that Beth expected that from them at all), but they did let her go. Simple as that, really - and it was shocking how easy it actually was for her just to pull her dirty grey tee shirt over her head and to pull her jeans back up from where they had been tugged down to her knees and for her to walk out of the building.

Albeit, she did so on shaky legs, but she made it all the same.

Walking came easier to her after a few minutes, and even though the rope that she had been tied with had left friction burn marks on her wrists and her ankles, it wasn't necessarily painful - not even as the wind blew against it in a way that made it sting. With damp cheeks and dulled eyes, Beth walked for what felt like it was forever - although it couldn't possibly have been that long at all before she found herself on a road, and she wasn't even that sure where it was in particular that she was walking - and after around two and a half hours of walking in a straight line down an impossibly long road, Beth heard the familiar rumble of an engine approaching from behind her.

The blonde didn't bother to turn around to acknowledge the person who was riding past. It wasn't the first vehicle she would have come across on her journey (journey to where exactly, she wasn't entirely sure), but it was the first one to come to a stop. The sound of tires skidding across the tarmac made her flinch - the noise was too loud and incredibly unwanted - but then there was the sound of her name being called out, and she stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of _his_ voice.

She didn't move to turn around, but Beth did continue to stand completely still and stare straight ahead. There was no sound coming from behind her, but Beth had a feeling that Daryl was edging slowly towards her, and she almost smiled to herself as she imagined the confused expression that she would find upon his face in that moment.

Carefully, Beth inhaled and exhaled several times - trying to calm her wild heart that was beating at least twice as quickly as it normally did - and she fought the tears from her eyes as she recalled how desperately she had wanted this man to come to her rescue over the last two and a half days. It had been horrific being tortured that the way that she had been, and although it could have been worse - at least none of the men raped her like the animals that she knew they were, at least they didn't force themselves upon her in any way that wasn't with their fists against her face and her upper body - it had still been a living hell.

And it wasn't his fault. Not really.

(But it still kind of was, and Beth wasn't sure whether or not she was annoyed at Daryl or whether she was annoyed at herself or whether she was just annoyed at the world for throwing this at her.)

After a good few seconds of composing herself, Beth slowly turned around so that she was facing Daryl, and her light blue eyes locked with his much darker ones immediately. She had assumed correctly in that he had moved towards her, but he wasn't quite as close as she had thought he would have been by now, and instead of confused, Daryl just looked... _hesitant._

But then he saw something. Maybe it was the yellow, green and purple bruises that were littered across her body, maybe it was her torn and ripped clothing or the dark marks above and underneath her light eyes. Maybe it was the long cut on her cheek that had long since coated over with dirt and dry blood, or maybe it was the split in her puffy, swollen lips. But it was something, anyway - or maybe even all of it - and it made his expression change almost immediately.

Daryl's entire body turned tense and even from this distance, Beth could notice how his eyes suddenly turned incredibly dark. It was almost frightening and it was anything but entirely sane, but Beth liked it all the same.

God - she actually _liked_ it.

(Maybe they had hit her head a little too hard.)

So from the signs that he was offering to her, it seemed as though he was angry, too.

 _Good._ Beth thought that he probably should have been.

Between them, it was deadly silent whilst Daryl clenched and unclenched his fists, and after a short amount of time, his angry expression did soften ever so slightly and his eyes grew less harsh. It was evident that he was fighting some sort of internal conflict - a mixture of shock and anger and concern - and after what felt as though it could have been hours, he finally opened his mouth to speak.

"What the fuck happened?" he asked her, his tone surprisingly gentle despite the fact that his voice was rougher than usual and his words were coarse.

And against everything that she was feeling - the ache in her muscles, the chill in her bones, the wetness of her eyes that filled with tears again at the sound of his voice - Beth's lips curved upwards into a smile, and as tears began to trickle down her face once more, she began to laugh.

* * *

Everything that happens is a blur, and Beth is honestly completely clueless as to how on earth she manages to make it from the side of the road that she had been walking down to lying on an unfamiliar bed, at least a dozen pillows propping her upright and two thick duvets curled around her tiny body.

There are some things that buzz around in her memory - she can vaguely recall the feel of Daryl's strong and supportive arms as they wrapped around her shaking form, the sound of his gruff and panicked voice as he spoke down the phone to an unknown person, the sound of people (both men and women) shouting and yelling and generally arguing around her. But the words that had been said are all foreign to her brain; just noises and sounds that she can't seem to make any sense of, and it is only now as she blinks open her eyes and stares up at the pale ceiling of the room that Beth can begin to think straight once again.

Sat at her bedside is none other than Carol; the woman who is at least twenty, if not thirty, years Beth's senior, and the last person who the blonde was expecting to see when she finally opened her eyes. Carol juggles two jobs - one working as a waitress at the local diner and the other working as a barmaid at the bar where both Daryl and her father seem to frequent - and Beth recalls that she has a daughter, too, although she cannot remember her age. Although the two women had never really interacted with each other (just the one time when Carol had been left with no choice but to ask her to collect her drunken daddy), Beth immediately feels her body calm at the presence of someone who is at least half familiar to her, and the kind smile that Carol offers the younger woman is more than slightly reassuring, too.

"You're awake," the grey haired woman murmurs, her voice soft and gentle, and as much as Beth wants to speak back to her, she finds that all she has the energy to do right now is to nod her head up and down in response.

As Carol examines her face, her bright blue eyes narrow, and Beth knows that she must look absolutely _horrible_ right now.

"I'm not a doctor," the older woman informs her, but Beth already knew that before she spoke. "I've given you as much medication as I possibly can do, with what we had available, anyway. I think it should be helping with the pain."

Beth thinks that it probably is helping quite a lot because she can't really feel anything - her body is generally just numb, and it is pure and utter _bliss_ \- and she nods her head once again. When Beth opens her mouth in a weak attempt to speak, Carol silences her by shuffling herself around so that she can reach for the glass of water that had been placed on the wooden bedside table, and the older woman passes it over to her carefully.

The blonde has not considered herself to be a child for quite some time now, and she can easily reach up and hold the glass by herself; and whilst there is a part of her that actually wants to point that out, Beth is far too exhausted - and, now that she thinks about it, far too thirsty - to resist Carol's kindness. The glass meets her sore lips and Beth winces ever so slightly as she opens up her mouth, tipping her head back slightly whilst Carol mimics the action with the glass. The water is practically freezing cold and it may as well be burning has as the liquid runs down her throat, but it is so relieving to just have a cold drink of water that Beth doesn't even bother to put up a fight.

Once she has taken four huge gulps of the fresh water, Carol moves to pull the glass away, and Beth finally manages to find her voice once again. "Thank you," she murmurs to Carol, her eyes soft as she raises one of her bruised hands so that she can wipe at her damp mouth. Upon doing so, Beth finally realises that both of her hands have been bandaged - neatly, to be fair - and she can't help herself but to stare at the white cloth that is wrapped around them as though it is offending her before she turns her attention to Carol again.

The question that she asks is never voiced, but Carol seems to be able to read her with ease, and the older woman shrugs her shoulders almost sheepishly whilst she rubs the back of her neck. "It was all that I could find," Carol says in explanation, and Beth nods her head in understanding and drops the subject there.

Nothing more is said between the two women for at least a good minute or two, and Beth takes the opportunity to allow her wide blue eyes to roam over the expanse of the unfamiliar surroundings. Once it appears as though she has finished taking in everything that there is to see about this simple and sparsely decorated bedroom (it's not much - just a king sized bed, two bedside tables on either side of it, a bay window and a wardrobe) Carol clears her throat and speak again.

"I know that we don't know what happened to you or who did this to you just yet, but I want you to know that you can rest assured that those men aren't going to let this slide."

At the woman's words, Beth's light blue eyes fly open wider than they usually do, and she snaps her neck quickly around so that she is facing Carol as opposed to the door. "Men?" Beth asks, the word rolling from her tongue with ease despite the fact that she already knows in her heart who it is that Carol is referring to.

And as that realisation dawns upon her, for the first time since she woke up, Beth wonders to herself what on earth Carol has to do with The Brother's Arms.

Nodding her head up and down, Carol offers Beth another little smile as she speaks. "The club," the older woman explains, and Beth releases a shaky breath at the confirmation of that. "Speaking of which - I should probably go an let them know that you're awake. You've been asleep for a good few hours, now, and everyone has been so worried about you."

The grey haired woman quickly rushes to stand up, although before she leaves Carol bends her upper body down so that she can straighten up the pillows and cushions that are propping Beth's back up so that she is sitting up comfortably in the bed. When she seems to be satisfied with her work, Carol straightens herself up once again and purses her lips.

"I'll be right back," Carol promises to her, and despite the fact that a part of her honestly wants to protest - because _really,_ after the last few days that she has had, all that Beth wants to do is go back to sleep and not talk about anything that happened to her in that warehouse - Beth gives in and doesn't say anything as she watches the slender woman exit the bedroom, leaving the door open behind her.

Barely a minute can pass by before Daryl Dixon is storming into the room, and Beth is suddenly feeling anything but calm all over again just at the sight of him.

The biker stands in the doorway of the room looking as handsome as he always does; despite the fact that his long hair a tangled mess - clearly unwashed - and his stubble is longer than she has ever seen it be, too. It's evident that he hasn't necessarily been taking the best care of himself, but Beth knows that she doesn't entirely look her best, either. It's not as though she really minds him looking like this, anyway, especially since he manages to pull it off a lot better than she ever could.

Daryl's deep blue eyes settle on hers almost immediately, and his broad shoulders are tense as he stares straight at her, taking all of her in. Visibly swallowing, Beth tries her hardest not to lose her nerve as she returns his stare with an equal intensity; waiting for him to make some sort of decision and move to either leave the bedroom or to step further inside it.

For a moment, the outline of a woman - Carol, no doubt - appears to hover behind him, but Daryl has braced both of his arms on either side of the door frame and it means that Beth can't quite make out who it definitely is. The figure is gone almost as quickly as she came, and Beth assumes that if it is Carol, then the older woman must have decided that she will leave the two of them alone for the time being.

Eventually, Daryl's tense shoulders relax and his arms fall from the doorway. The man practically tiptoes as he walks into the room, and his dark eyes are still locked straight on hers as he does so. It isn't as though this sort of behaviour is strange for him, Beth concludes; considering the fact that he always seems to be so careful and cautious whenever he is around her, it's not all that unfamiliar to see him act as though he is trying his hardest not to scare off a young doe in the middle of the woods.

Although he enters the room, Daryl doesn't make any attempt to sit down in the space that Carol had occupied on the wooden chair that is positioned next to the bed that Beth is lay in the centre of. Instead, he hovers at the bottom of the bed, his body turning slightly as he looks back at the door - as though he is checking to see if anyone had followed him into the room - before he turns back around to face her. Now that he is closer Beth can feel that he has a nervous, uncertain energy around him.

A deep, heavy sigh escapes his lips and Daryl blinks his dark eyes several times as he worries the skin around his thumbnail, something that Beth assumes is a nervous habit. He drops his arm so that it dangles by his side and he glances up to meet with her blue eyes in a way that causes her pounding heart to beat even faster in her chest, and Beth battles with herself to be silent - as in literally bites down on the tip of her tongue so that she doesn't say a word, so that she doesn't beat him to it because it's obvious how hard this is for him to even be here right now - and she waits until he speaks for the first time since he entered the room.

"'M gonna kill him," Daryl mumbles to her, voice low and husky, but Beth still hears every word that he says as though he is shouting it all out from the top of his lungs. She doesn't really know why it is that she seems to have a knack for hearing everything that this quiet man has to say, but she just _does,_ and the blonde isn't going to start complaining about it.

Carol had briefly mentioned the fact that the club didn't have any knowledge of who it was that was responsible for doing this to her, and despite the fact that the older woman made her feel comfortable and safe, Beth had definitely not been prepared to start sharing the details of what had happened to her during her time in the abandoned warehouse. The whole ordeal had been brutal and had damaged her both physically and emotionally, and the last thing that Beth could possibly care about in that moment was telling anyone about how a man with an eye patch and a vendetta against a biker gang had encouraged a group of other unfamiliar men to beat her until she bled from as many places as possible.

But now that he was here, Beth thought to herself that maybe - just maybe - she would tell Daryl Dixon. If he ever asked.

Still, despite the fact that nobody seemed as though they were supposed to really have any idea of who it was that had harmed her - and now she can recall a gruff question in a demanding tone, _"who the fuck did this to you?" -_ it seemed that Daryl had a pretty good idea about it. And that was partially a relief, because goodness, even she didn't know who it was that had orchestrated all of this since she had never seen the man before in her entire life, and knowing that Daryl knew meant that she felt safer than she ever did before, even with Carol here.

He continued to stand at the foot of the bed, and Beth noticed that his clenched fists were shaking quite violently as he continued to look at her. Beth could imagine how she looked to him - so small and broken and fragile in this huge bed - and she swallowed once again as the anger practically radiated from him. After a few deep breaths, Daryl spoke again; his tone filled with a mixture of passion and hatred, a promise to her that he meant with every ounce of his being.

"I swear, girl," he breathed, voice shaking, his chest rising and falling quickly. "I'm gonna _kill_ him."

And _god,_ Beth believed him.

* * *

 **O-K, so that was a little bit dramatic.**

 **What do you think so far?! I can't believe this story has ten chapters already. And there was me thinking it was going to be another one-shot...**

 **As always, thank you so much for reading, and Merry Christmas once again!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hope that you all had a fantastic Christmas!**

 **This is my favourite time of year and despite the fact that work has been mad busy and that I've been battling with my Uni assignments, I've still managed to get this done for you all. Think of it as a New Years present.**

 **Thank you all so much for your reviews on the last chapter, by the way - seriously, all of your kind and supportive and funny words always make me smile and laugh so much. I love hearing what you have to think about these chapters and this story and I'm glad to see that other people seem to be enjoying it so far.**

* * *

Since the first time that Beth Greene had laid her light blue eyes upon the form of Daryl Dixon, her dreams have been constantly haunted by his presence. Even though the man is there in there in her life in the flesh increasingly more nowadays, it still comes back down to the way that it seems to have always been - that he is consistently more present in her dreams.

When she is out of consciousness, the two of them together seem to be so much _braver,_ so much more bold; unnerved around each other with absolutely nothing to fear. In her dreams, Daryl's hands know her body better than her own do, and it is similar to the way that hers know his. When she is asleep, there is a strong sense of familiarity amongst them along with a huge amount of confidence that does not exist whenever she opens her eyes, and Beth isn't sure which way that she prefers.

(The dreams, of course - she wishes that they, now, were like they are in the dreams.)

But whilst said dreams constantly fill Beth's body and mind with a blissful sense of pleasure, there are also other emotions that they stir within the depths of her, too; emotions that don't necessarily overwhelm her or consume her, but emotions that are still _there._ They are passionate and intense feelings, senses of fear and dread, and what shocks her more than anything (but at the same time, doesn't shock her at all) is that those feelings don't come from him.

That sense of fear has never come from Daryl, and right now, she doubts that it ever will do, despite the fact that she knows that it probably should. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, Beth isn't all that naive; and the blonde knows that Daryl Dixon _should_ scare her. The man should make her feel everything from frightened and vulnerable and weak, and she should want to run for her life whenever his gaze falls upon her before it's too late.

(But he makes her feel everything from strong to powerful to safe _,_ and Beth wants nothing more than to run _into_ him, not from him.)

It's not the fact that Beth acknowledges that Daryl is some sort of 'bad' person; because she long ago decided upon the fact that she wasn't just going to pin him with that label when she didn't even know him, hadn't even spoken to him. And that was then and this is now, and now that she has got to know him ever so slightly - because whilst she's not sure if him sticking his tongue town her throat and her grinding against him at the back wall of a bar makes them _friends,_ she thinks that it must at least make them acquaintances - Beth is confident that Daryl Dixon is not a bad man.

However, it is absolutely impossible to deny the fact that he is dangerous, so Beth accepts the fact that yes, she probably should be scared of him. With men like the one who took her on his case, desperate to do anything that will hurt him and the club that he is part of, Beth does understand the fact that Daryl Dixon is dangerous. She understands now, after what happened to her, that just being associated with Daryl Dixon is dangerous.

But it doesn't scare her. Not even slightly.

Not even after everything that has happened to her, and as she explores those thoughts in her mind, Beth thinks that maybe it makes her crazy. Or perhaps it makes her insane. Or, most likely, it makes her just _plain stupid;_ but honestly, Beth can't bring herself to care much about that. Despite everything that she knows that he is, despite everything that has happened to her over the course of the last three days (or so) because a man with an eye-patch thought that she belonged to him, Beth is not scared of Daryl Dixon.

But the dreams?

Well, that's something different entirely.

Mostly, it is the _violence_ of her imagination that worries Beth more than anything else, probably because of the fact that it's something that she has never once expected from herself. It's violence in a new sort of way that Beth doesn't know what to do with - violence that has her dreaming of Daryl's teeth sinking into her shoulder and biting at the muscle there until he draws blood, his large hands gripping so tightly at harshly at her pale skin so that it bruises, his bitten-down nails scraping roughly across her flesh and breaking the skin.

All of these pictures that flash through her mind and buzz around in her dreams are things that Beth had never, ever considered before - well, before _him,_ and now the thoughts won't leave her alone.

At the minute, it makes it quite difficult to look him directly in the eyes. Not when she knows what's going on in her mind every time that she goes to sleep. It's _weird,_ really, that the man has absolutely no idea what she spends her nights dreaming of; what she gets hers off to, what she wants so strongly for him to actually do to her. And even though Beth isn't a psychologist, she knows (because it's so plain and obvious) that everyone thinks she is avoiding Daryl's gaze because she blames him for what happened to her; and every time that someone offers them both a knowing and sympathetic look, Beth wants nothing more than to just scream in frustration.

She doesn't do that, of course. Doesn't because she's a good girl, doesn't because she isn't rude or aggressive or ill-mannered, not even when she's frustrated. Not even when she's sad and broken down. But _god_ , she wants to - more than anything else.

* * *

Since the moment that she was taken from the side of the road, the days seem to have all merged into one another, and Beth has found that she really has lost track of time. It's difficult to know where she is up to in the week, and what probably makes it worse is the fact that she hasn't even bothered to ask anybody about it. In all honesty, it probably doesn't even matter. After all, it had been made pretty obvious - not through words, but more through general behaviour - that Beth wouldn't be leaving the property until she had fully healed from her injuries.

It also seemed to be going without saying that the police would not be involved with the matter, but that was another issue altogether.

The place itself where Beth had found herself staying in for the last few days was nice enough. It was a one-bedroomed (as far as she knew of, anyway) apartment that was very bare, with no pictures on any of the walls or trinkets on the surfaces that hinted to who the owner might be. The longer that she stayed stuck in the bedroom of the apartment, the more that it seemed to her that nobody actually lived there - still, despite the fact that the apartment seemed nice enough, it still wasn't anything close to home, and she didn't feel comfortable at all.

The blonde was badly injured and still in a lot of pain as a result of her injuries; and although a lot of the swelling had gone down, it was still incredibly difficult for Beth to move around without any assistance. The only time that she had actually left the room so far was to venture to the bathroom, and even then it was only actually possible with the help of Carol supporting her weight and walking along with her.

It was difficult not to feel bitter about the whole situation, even though Beth knew that there was a strong possibility that things could have definitely been a lot, lot worse for her. Considering the fact that she had spent the last eighteen months adjusting to being completely independent, relying on someone to help her do something so simple as use the toilet was beyond frustrating, and as kind as everyone was being towards her, Beth couldn't wait until she was well enough to actually leave.

After the first few hours had calmed down and Beth had chance to relax ever so slightly, she thought of her father, and figured that he might be her best excuse to get out of this apartment. Realistically, Beth knew that her father wouldn't be drunk enough during the middle of the afternoon to be completely oblivious to her extensive injuries; but still, she had hoped for the warmth and comfort of her own bed over one of a stranger's. However, when she had charged up her cell phone and dialled her father's number, she found that it wasn't at all difficult to convince him that she was spending a few nights over at one of her friend's houses.

It was disappointing, to say the least, and the phone call didn't even last one minute before her daddy was making his excuses to go. Carol had been sat beside her when she made the call so it was completely out of the question to pretend that her father was already asking too many questions regarding her whereabouts, and Beth had begrudgingly given up the thought that Hershel Greene would help her out of this mess.

(It did cross her mind that perhaps her over-protective older sister would be encouragement enough for Carol to finally give in and suggest to the rest of the club that it was time to finally take Beth back home, but she would have to wait until Maggie decided that she wanted to meet up before anything would come of that.)

It was the third night of her stay in the basic apartment when Beth stirred awake in the middle of the night, and the cotton pyjama shorts that Carol had brought for her to wear to bed were warm and wet. As Beth blinked her eyes open into the darkness of the bedroom, she slowly realised that the white bedsheets that she was lay upon and the cream duvet covers that were tangled around her body were also in the same condition.

It was only when she struggled with herself to sit up in bed - a pained series of whimpers escaping her throat as she twisted sore muscles - and adjusted herself on the firm mattress that Beth realised what she had done.

It is impossible not to notice how the space all around her on the king-sized bed is now absolutely drenched; a large puddle of urine - _her_ urine, she realises - staining the clean sheets and more than likely soaking deeper and deeper into the mattress with every passing second. With wide eyes, a sharp, horrified gasp sneaks out of Beth's lips before she can even stop it, and the bed frustratingly creaks underneath her weight as Beth shifts herself in an attempt to manoeuvre herself from it.

For the entire duration of her stay in the apartment, the blonde is absolutely positive that the bed hasn't made one single damned sound; and now, as it chooses to squeak and creak and groan loudly in protest as she moves, Beth hears the familiar sound of a light switch being clicked on from the living room area, and just moments later the sound of footsteps padding down the long hallway of the apartment meet her ears.

The sounds of obvious _movement_ have Beth's entire body tensing up, and it's incredibly difficult for her to do anything at all in terms of hiding the evidence of her _accident_ when she's as battered and bruised and sore as she still is. Knowing that she's screwed - as in honestly screwed, because there's absolutely no way that she's going to get out of this, no way that she can even have an ounce of pride or dignity after _this -_ Beth stares at the doorway, locking eyes with the bottom of it.

She can't help herself but to watch the small space where there is light creeping underneath it, allowing her a glimpse to outside.

The next few seconds seem to pass by at a dramatically slow pace, and she is reminded of a time when she was much younger, a time when she was much more innocent; a time when she used to sit between her two older siblings on the living room floor of the farmhouse, all three of them watching a scary movie (that Beth most definitely should not have been viewing and would have had to sneak downstairs after her parents had gone to bed to watch). Those evenings would be spent with Beth snuggled up underneath her covers, her doe eyes wide and scared and yet intrigued, and despite how terrified she usually was of whatever was being shown on the television, Beth never really could look away - she always needed to see what happened for herself.

Right now, it feels as though she has been taken back to one of those evening's; only Beth knows that she hasn't, and her breath hitches in her throat when the sound of footsteps suddenly stops and she can make out the outline of something - two feet, presumably - blocking the majority of the light from the hallway creeping through the doorway.

No doubt it seems incredibly over-dramatic, but after everything that she has been through after the last few days - after the warehouse and the beatings and the bruises and the scars and the blood - Beth had honestly thought to herself that things could only really get better. Obviously that wasn't the case, though; and as she sat in the middle of a urine-soaked mattress, all that the blonde really wanted to do was burst into tears.

That last little bit of something that she had, something that enabled her to hold her head up high, even after so many people had seen the state that she had been in after the warehouse...

As the door is slowly pushed open, well - that 'something' disappears.

The light from the hallway seeps into the room and lights it up enough so that Beth can make out her surroundings much better. She can see how the pristine coloured sheets have now turned darker underneath the weight of her urine, and there's so much of it - much more than she realised, much more than she imagined; and now that she really thinks about it, she can strongly smell it in the air, too.

At the sound of someone clearing their throat in her doorway, Beth's eyes dart up, and of course she finds that it's _him._ Who else would it be? Out of everyone who could have possibly come to her tonight, it would be Daryl Dixon.

And Beth visibly swallows at the sight of him.

The room is still dark and the light in the hallway isn't necessarily the brightest that she has ever been around, so the outline of him is incredibly dim, but it's enough that Beth knows that it's Daryl and not anybody else. From where she is sat on the mattress and where he is stood in the doorway, the man appears to be so much _broader_ than she ever noticed before - his shoulders relaxed but defined, stretching out far more than her own ever would.

It isn't as though the shadow of him in the doorway is intimidating; not necessarily, anyway. But _his_ presence still makes her feel nervous - as though there's something churning around in her stomach, pulling and pushing and sloshing - and if she was embarrassed at her actions before he arrived, then she is most certainly _humiliated_ now.

Daryl doesn't move to enter the bedroom, and after a long moment of silence, the outline of his arm stretches out towards the wall on the left hand side of the door, and he flicks the switch - that familiar sound meeting her ears again - and the bedroom is lit up in colour. Beth defiantly fights against the instinctive urge to squint and shield her eyes from the bright light that is practically blinding - especially after she had been slowly adjusting to the dark - and instead she continues to stare straight in his direction.

At first, he doesn't say anything at all, and Beth isn't really sure what she would rather him do - speak or be quiet. There's just something about the way that his deep blue eyes roam over her appearance every time that he looks in her direction that makes her want to tear off all of her clothes and stand proudly in front of him and yet curl up into a ball and hide, all at the same time. It can sometimes (often) be unnerving, to have him looking at her the way that he does, and the blonde can't decide on whether she actually wants to know what's going on inside of his mind when he looks at her like that.

When he looks at her like _this._

His brows furrow together slightly, and Beth can tell that he is confused, and for a split second he actually looks a little sheepish. If circumstances were different and had she not wet the bed, then Beth supposes that she wouldn't really blame him for feeling that way; but all it will take is just a few more seconds and then he too will notice what she's done.

Beth is certain that her face must be fire-engine red at this point, and she wants nothing more than to crawl beneath the sheets and pretend that she doesn't exist when his confused gaze finally drops to the bedsheets. The whole time that he has been stood in the doorway, Beth has been looking directly at him, and just because his gaze has moved on doesn't mean that hers has - even though it would probably be a lot less mortifying if she did look elsewhere.

instead, Beth doesn't have chance to miss the way that his eyes widen and how they venture from the bedsheets to the duvet back to her lower half and then to the sheets again. It's obvious to her that he's surprised - and obviously, she can't blame him for feeling that way, because she is nearly twenty one years old and she has literally just wet the bed - but when he clears his throat, Beth thinks that it looks like _he_ might be blushing just as much as she is.

Daryl won't meet her gaze now that he has realised what she has done, and the sight of him crossing the threshold and stepping into the bedroom without even glancing up at her has Beth feeling even worse about herself. The man approaches her at a slow pace, and she thinks to herself about how _cruel_ he is being right now.

Because he is. He probably doesn't even know it - most likely won't have realised what he's done by not even looking at her for half a second - but he is.

Despite the fact that he is avoiding all eye contact with her, Beth still takes the time to look over his appearance as he approaches the bed. His too-long hair is messy and untamed, his eyes tired and dark; and despite the fact that he has clearly woken up quite a bit since he first opened her door, it's still very obvious that this man was fast asleep not long ago. It's the first time that Beth can recall herself seeing Daryl Dixon wearing something that wasn't a combination of denim and leather; but even in a plain white tee shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants, she thinks that he is the most handsome man that she has ever seen in her life.

And _god,_ does that make this situation even more horrifying.

He finally comes to a stop just several inches away from the edge of the end of the bed, and Beth can't look at his face any more without having to crane her neck because he's too close and he's too tall. "I'm sorry," she blurts out, and she notices that at his fingers flex at her words. Beth chances a glance up at his face and notices that he is still avoiding looking at her altogether; instead, he's focusing on the damp bedsheets, and her heart pounds violently against her chest.

With fiery cheeks, Beth lowers her gaze back down to his hands and attempts to explain herself, to explain what she's done. "I didn't mean to," she says to him, her voice cracking slightly as she speaks, even though she desperately wanted to sound anything but weak right now, because that just seems to make this whole situation ten times worse. "I was asleep, and I -"

"S'fine." His rough voice cuts her off, and at the sound of it, Beth's head snaps up. Daryl continues to stare down at the urine soaked bedsheets for a good few seconds more before he finally lifts his eyes to meet with hers; and whilst it isn't necessarily sympathy that she sees in his gaze, it's _something._

And perhaps that something is enough.

* * *

Her cheeks are still hot, but the burning from them is much softer than it was before, and she notices as she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror that they are more of a pink than a red now.

Despite the fact that Beth still feels incredibly humiliated about the fact that it was _Daryl_ of all people who found her sat in a puddle of her own liquid, she doesn't feel quite as bad about it now that has had some time to calm herself down. It had all been a little bit awkward in the moments after, but she was grateful about the fact that Daryl didn't ask her any questions or push her about anything; however, he was quite insistent that she had a bath, and he rushed off to run her one before coming back a few minutes later and helping her walk to the bathroom.

Once the water has cooled down until the point where it is lukewarm and once her body is thoroughly clean, Beth decides that it's time to get back into bed. Softly, she finds herself calling out Daryl's name, enjoying the way that it rolls off her tongue so easily and smiling to herself as it echoes around the bathroom.

It doesn't take him long - just a matter of seconds, really - to reach her, and although he briefly mentioned the fact that nobody else is in the apartment ( _his_ apartment, she had realised, and the thought made her blush even more than she already was) Daryl still closed the bathroom door quickly behind him. Despite the fact that she has worn a bra and a pair of fresh panties to bathe in - black, too, so they wouldn't turn see-through - Daryl still avoids looking in her general direction whatsoever, and it's actually slightly amusing the way that he seems to find the wall behind her head incredibly interesting all of a sudden.

The man holds his large hands out to help her out of the bath (his eyes locked on the wall the entire time) and Beth is more than thankful for the fact that he had placed a towel on the floor for her when she had first stepped into the water. The fluffy material is soft against her cut feet, and almost as soon as she is standing upright Daryl releases his grip on her.

The towel that he had folded and left for her on the edge of the bath is opened out before her as Daryl positions himself in front of her once again, and Beth is all too aware of his close proximity as she steps towards him, fighting a smile as she reaches for the corners of the towel. Once it is wrapped around her body, Daryl takes a large stride backwards - most likely in order to put some distance between them - and Beth chooses to realise just how awful she must look right now.

The blonde hadn't bothered to wash out her hair since Carol had helped her do it just yesterday, and so she had left it tied up in a ponytail on the top of her head throughout the duration of her bath. But despite the fact that she was clean now, she still looked a mess - her eyes still purple from where they had faded from their original colours of black and blue, two thick and bloody scars spread across her cheek and her forehead, small and large and yellow and green bruises littered across the majority of her pale skin.

The sound of his voice breaking through the quiet space of the bathroom was surprising for her despite the fact that his tone was much more gentle than it usually was, and his words break her away from her self-conscious thoughts, if just for a moment. "Feel better?" Daryl asks her, and Beth offers him a slight smile as she nods her head up and down, the ends of her hair tickling the back of her neck.

A ghost of a smile flickers across his own lips, but moments later it's gone. "C'mon then," he says to her, moving his head in the direction of the door and standing backwards, waiting for her to walk past him.

Despite the fact that she knows it's probably a bad idea to do anything by herself at the moment, Beth still tries to walk on her own, and she manages to take a few steps on her own before she winces in pain. Almost as soon as she squeezes her light blue eyes tightly shut, Daryl is by her side, and the feel of his strong hands resting on both of her shoulders make her want to shudder.

"Gotcha," he murmurs under his breath as he holds her upright, and after a few deep breath, Beth opens her eyes. This time, when Daryl releases her from his grip, he doesn't wander far at all - instead, he keeps his fingers skimming one of her shoulders as he moves around her, and when his eyes meet with hers, Beth just _knows_ what he's going to do.

There's not any real sense of suggestion on his part. Daryl's movements are hesitant, giving her time to tell him no if she wants to, but there's no verbal exchange of consent as he crouches down slightly and slowly moves his muscular arms out so that one of them meets with the back of her knees. As he moves to pick her up, his deep blue eyes hover over her own, but Beth doesn't say or do anything to refuse him.

So, he scoops her up in his arms, careful to ensure that he doesn't send the towel flying off her; and in response, Beth instinctively wraps her arms around his neck. The last time that she did that, their mouths were hot on one another's and his tongue was probing against her -

\- but she can't, _won't_ think of that right now.

Instead, Beth lets out a small, content sigh as Daryl begins to move out of the bathroom, and she feels a little bit guilty as he struggles to open the door.

"Damn," he grunts as he kicks it open with his boot, careful as he moves them both into the hallway. "You're heavier than you look, girl."

At first, she isn't sure whether or not she actually hears him properly, but then Beth acknowledges the fact that he's actually being _playful_ with her (and _god,_ she literally _pissed in his bed_ and this man is being _playful_ with her, maybe even _flirting_ with her) and she can't help but grin at him - as much as she can without it hurting her jaw too much, anyway.

When he takes her into the bedroom, it doesn't even take Beth five seconds to realise that he has kept himself busy whilst she was bathing by changed the bedsheets, the pillowcases and the duvet; and _dammit,_ she wants to cry at the sight of the freshly made bed in front of her.

It's moments like this when Beth thinks to herself that nothing else matters - not who he is or what he does or what trouble he causes - because there's this side of him; this side of him that is so _good;_ so good that he simply can't be a bad person, so good that he surely can't be as bad for her as everyone will tell her that he is.

Beth knows plenty of guys who live in this little town who are supposedly good people, but she isn't all that sure about how many of them would treat her the way that Daryl Dixon does.

As he sets her down on her feet, she instantly misses the warmth of his strong arms wrapped around her much smaller frame; tucking her close against his firm chest and keeping her safe. For a brief moment, Daryl hovers; but then his eyes are lingering on hers for a good few seconds in a way that feels like a departing look, and when he nods his head at her and turns to leave, Beth panics.

One of her slender hands reaches out to grab at his bicep, and at the sudden movement the man turns around quickly, his expression confused. Like her rushed apology just an hour or so before, the words tumble out of her mouth before Beth can really process them and understand what it is that she's saying to him, and it's only when he nods his head in acceptance that Beth acknowledges the fact that she just asked him to stay.

"Got any clothes?" he asks her, and before she can answer him, he speaks again. "Clean. Clean clothes."

Now that he has made himself clearer, Beth just shakes her head from side to side as she accepts the fact that it's probably not comfortable to sleep in urine soaked pyjama shorts, anyway. With a nod of his head, Daryl moves towards one of the dressers, and Beth sits herself down on the bed whilst he rummages through the content of it.

When a navy tee shirt is placed down on the bed beside her, Beth immediately knows what it's for, and she offers him a small smile of thanks as she holds it in both of her hands. The material is soft, and even though it's only in her hands, Beth can tell that despite the fact that it smells clean, it also smells like him.

Stepping backwards so that he puts distance between the two of them once again, Daryl clears his throat a little awkwardly, and Beth's eyes move from the tee shirt in her hands to the man who is now standing in the middle of the bedroom. "'M jus' gonna go check everywhere's locked up," he explains as he steps towards the bedroom door, but Beth knows that he is leaving so that she can change. "Won't be too long."

Nodding her head, Beth finds herself stuck for what to say to him, she she says the only thing that really comes to mind. "Thank you, Daryl," she murmurs, voice soft and tired, and he just nods his own head back at her in response before he makes his way out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Beth doesn't waste any time in ridding herself of her damp bra and panties, and as she tugs the tee shirt on over her head, she smiles as the scent of _him_ really does overcome her. Despite the fact that she isn't concentrating much on anything at all that he's doing, Beth can hear him loudly walking around the apartment, and she thinks to herself that he might be moving louder than usual on purpose so that she can hear when he is finally coming back towards the bedroom.

Not wanting to sleep without underwear, Beth momentarily debates over whether or not she might be pushing boundaries before she decides to give in and reaches out towards one of the bedside tables. It's the third drawer that she opens where she finds his boxers, and although she thinks to herself that it's probably a little bit weird, Beth doesn't hesitate any longer and grabs a dark pair before pulling them on over her legs.

The boxers themselves are far too big on her waist, but it's not as though they're so huge that they'll fall down and leave her uncovered during the night, and at least they're actually _dry._ Beth knows that it would have probably been more appropriate to ask Daryl if he had any shorts or another pair of sweatpants, but she tries her best not to worry about that too much as she closes the drawer and settles herself against the fresh sheets of the bed.

Despite the fact that she desperately wants to be awake when he finally re-enters the bedroom - _his_ bedroom, and goodness does she feel guilty for taking it from him over the last few days - both her mind and her body are exhausted and still recovering from the traumatic events of the warehouse, and her eyelids begin to droop shut as soon as her head reaches the pillow.

The light is still turned on in the bedroom and shining brightly around her, but Beth is fast asleep within seconds of curling up underneath the covers; and she is still completely out of it when Daryl finally switches it off and crawls into bed behind her.

* * *

 **I don't know why, but this chapter was quite difficult for me to write on an emotional level - particularly the part where Beth wets the bed.**

 **The bed wetting scene and the bathing scene have been in my head since I started writing this fic, but it was actually so hard to put it all into words and I just hope that I've managed to actually do it some sort of justice. I don't want him to seem too OOC either by agreeing to stay the night with her, but I don't even think emotionally/socially awkward Daryl Dixon could refuse her request when she's gone through... well, everything.**

 _(Plus I know I've not described it yet but I've kind of hinted towards the fact that he has been sleeping on the couch in his apartment whilst Beth has been in his bed and he will probably want a decent nights sleep too and she will have definitely felt so good in his arms when he carried her that it will have been really, really hard to say no to sleeping in bed with her. Right?)_

 **Right now, Beth is in a difficult place (can you blame her?); and she's been looking for signs that Daryl isn't all bad since the very beginning of this fic, and now she's finally getting them and it's going to definitely play a part in encouraging her to pursue something with him.** **Baby steps, right?** **At least, I hope that much has come across to you guys as obvious, but I don't know whether or not I'm writing it clear enough... Or, maybe I'm just really tired. I don't know.**

 **Lastly, I haven't even re-read this chapter or even edited it at _all_ so it might be a little messy at the minute... but it's 1AM here and I start work at 8, so I'll probably just check over it tomorrow and maybe make a few slight grammatical changes - I just wanted to get this out to you guys before the new year. Hope you all have a good one!x**


	12. Chapter 12

_"No."_

It's not even ten o'clock in the god damned morning, and already Daryl's patience has been put to the test.

And the man's temper has never really been anything even remotely close to controlled (which is something that even he will easily admit); so right now, Daryl is actually surprised - and yes, maybe even a little bit fucking _proud_ of himself - about the fact that nothing (including a certain someone's nose) has been broken, or at least punched.

Inside of his chest, his heart is absolutely thundering from the adrenaline that has taken over his body as a result of his burning anger, and the youngest Dixon brother can't quite help but think to himself - just for one second - that he has honest to god never been so _furious_ in his entire life.

That ain't quite true though, of course.

Besides this, there have been _countless_ other occasions over his thirty six years of life where Daryl Dixon has been left absolutely seething. Just a few days ago, for example - when he happened to find himself riding past a badly bruised and beaten Beth Greene - might have been a better example of one time in his life when he felt more enraged than he ever had done before. There certainly aren't enough words in any language to even begin to describe how he had felt that day; in that moment when he had realised that it was _her._

There's nowhere that he can even begin to start describing the fury that overcame him when he realised just how brutal her injuries were, no explanation - verbal or not - that he could ever conjure up to explain the pain and the guilt that he has carried with him since that moment as a result of what Beth had to endure.

Hell, the girl might be a lot stronger than she looked, but that didn't necessarily mean that Daryl was; and just thinking too long about what had happened to her had him feeling all sorts of emotions that he really didn't want to.

So, Daryl might not currently be the angriest that he has ever been in his life right now, but he's still sure as hell pissed off.

In a way, he thinks to himself that it's a little bit strange, really, and even slightly overwhelming when he thinks about it - because anger is anything but foreign to Daryl, anything but _new;_ and yet it's still something that he hasn't managed to get under his complete control, an emotion that he hasn't been able to tame or master as of yet. He has heard a saying several times before - _practice makes perfect,_ he thinks it goes - but hell, with him, it just doesn't seem to apply.

With anger, he's had all of the practice in the world and then some, and yet he's still nowhere near even just being _good_ at dealing with it. Especially not now.

(But then again, after everything that has happened to the girl - the one that really is anything but _his,_ and yet still is all the same - Daryl thinks that perhaps it might actually be even close to justifiable that he's as pissed off as he currently is.)

"Daryl," Rick says, the sound of his voice breaking the biker away from his muddled thoughts.

It's been like this for a few days, now, his head; messed up even worse than it ever was before, and all since he found Beth walking down the road with her clothes torn and her face bloody and her skin marked.

The sheriff's tone of voice is calm and cool and something that is vaguely close to confident; but the man's hesitant blue eyes and the nervous way that he works over his bottom lip betray his true feelings, and the realisation of that just encourages Daryl to further stand his ground. Silently, he stands a little bit taller and broadens his shoulders ever so slightly, his stare dark as he looks directly over at where Rick is stood across the hall.

He's lingering in the doorway of the kitchen with Carol stood slightly behind him, her own cool blue eyes locked on Daryl, but he's not even acknowledged her presence as of yet. Instead, his focus has been solely on the sheriff, and that's how he intends it to stay until Rick leaves.

For what feels like it could easily be several minutes, all three of them stand in completely and utter silence; and whilst Daryl is unwilling to give in to what it is that Rick wants, he still can't help but feel a tiny sense of admiration for the man - especially considering the fact that he is still actually trying to push this whole matter any further.

 _You've gotta try and understand,_ Rick had said just a few minutes before - and thinking of those words again, Daryl almost laughs in disbelief about the over-confidence of this deluded man.

Almost.

"I already said no," Daryl spits, his bitter words coming out harshly through his gritted teeth.

By now, his blue eyes are wilf and blazing as he stares the sheriff down; and at this point, he isn't even sure whether or not he's actually even blinking any more. Deep breaths are all that are currently keeping him grounded, and even they are shaky, so Daryl knows that he's getting dangerously close to his breaking point.

(It's somewhere that he's not visited for a while, and he isn't sure that he wants to do it in front of anyone that isn't himself.)

"Ain't you fuckin' _listenin'_?" Daryl pushes, his large hands repeatedly clenching into fists and then unclenching again as they hang tightly by his sides. Rick's eyes flicker down to look at them, watching his fingers move for just two or three seconds before he looks up again. "What, you tellin' me that you ain't got _ears_ now, _sheriff_?"

Being stood in front of his bedroom door the way that he is - the door that he knows that she is currently behind, the door that leads into the room where he hopes that she's still curled up underneath his bedsheets fast asleep, where he hopes that she hasn't been disturbed from her slumber by his loud, shaking voice - Daryl can't help but feel as though he's currently playing the role of a guard dog for her. And _hell,_ it's something that his older brother would - _will -_ rile him mercilessly about, but right now, he's too angry to care about that.

By now, Daryl has already let her down enough - and _fuck,_ he barely even knows the damned girl - and if this is what he has to do for the rest of their lives to make sure that no more harm comes to her as a result of him, then so be it. He just doesn't care.

In fact, the only thing that Daryl Dixon currently cares about is not letting anyone other than himself into that bedroom - the one that is technically his, but may as well be hers, now.

 _Especially_ not Rick fucking Grimes.

Licking his lips, Rick tilts his head and chances a quick glance in Carol's direction - one that Daryl doesn't miss, one that he couldn't possibly miss when he can't find it within himself to look away from the sheriff's clear blue eyes - and then he looks back at Daryl once again, squinting slightly as though he is in deep thought about something. By now, it's more than apparent that Rick had thought that this would be anything but a problematic visit - at least where Daryl was concerned, anyway - but the youngest Dixon doesn't really give a shit about what Rick thought this would be.

For once, the man actually looks something akin to normal in just a plain white tee shirt and a pair of blue denim jeans; but Daryl sure as hell ain't stupid, and he knows that even if he's technically got a day off, Rick is still on the job.

A man like Rick Grimes is _never_ off the job.

"Daryl," Rick tries once again, this time reaching one of his arms out towards him. "I completely understand that you're feelin' a little - a little _protective_ of Beth right now." The sheriff edges closer ever so slightly, and Daryl stiffens impossibly more as a result of it. "But I jus' need to -"

There's something about the way that Rick is nudging closer towards him that has Daryl raging even worse than before - something about the fact that this man thinks he's seriously going to get past him and into that room - and his body is shaking almost violently now; the colour of his cheeks turning a dark red as a result of his fury.

"How many _fuckin' times_ do I gotta _say it,_ Grimes?" Daryl asks, only he yells more than speaks; his deep voice booming around the apartment. " _No one_ is gettin' in that room, 'cept for _me. 'Specially_ not some fuckin' _cop._ "

There - he's said it. Stated how he feels about it. About the fact that nobody is allowed in the room, allowed near Beth, unless they're him.

About the fact that he knows Rick isn't just an off-duty officer wanting to help out.

At Daryl's angry explanation, Rick lets out a heavy exhale; and Daryl can just _tell_ that the sheriff wants to argue with him about all of this - that he probably wants to insist to the biker that he genuinely isn't working now, that he just wants to make sure that Beth is alright after everything that happened to her - but he (wisely) doesn't push Daryl any further about the issue. Instead, Rick actually backs away ever so slightly, moving so that he's closer to Carol once again.

And for a long few moments, it's silent in the hallway, and that's just about fine for the time being.

But then Rick looks like he's about to say something more - opens his mouth as if to speak - and Daryl can't help but lash out as a result of it. "Get out," he hisses; his blue eyes absolutely blazing as he stares the other man down. His order seems to have rendered the sheriff speechless, and for that, Daryl is actually pleased.

This time, it's Carol's voice that breaks him out of his thoughts - her voice, much softer than Rick's and yet stronger at the same time, calling out his name. The tone that she's using is the one that, under different circumstances, tends to calm him down - but right now, it just makes him even more angry. Daryl's eyes snap to hers, and he frowns heavily in her direction; showing more emotion with the woman who he considers to be one of his best friends than he did to the sheriff, knowing that she can read him much better than Rick can.

"Fuck you," Daryl says to her, the pair of them looking directly at one another as he speaks.

And it's funny in a completely unfunny way, because once upon a time - hell, a time that wasn't even all that long ago - Carol was weak and scared and easy to back down. But she ain't like that any more. She's changed, and she's stronger for it - perhaps not quite as strong as Daryl knows that she could be if she had to be, but strong all the same - and she's brave enough right now to challenge his intense stare.

"Why'd you even let him in here, huh?" Daryl pushes, relaxing his shoulders ever so slightly as he questions her, knowing that she's not actually going to answer him. Not when his hands are trembling and his words are nasty and his breathing is uneven. "You fuckin' stupid or somethin'? You _want_ him dead?"

The only part of Carol's generally calm and relaxed facial expression that changes is her lips, and she purses them as she looks right back at him, seemingly unphased by his aggressive demeanour. "You need to calm down," the older woman tells him, her eyebrows arching slightly as she looks him up and down in a way that is almost judgemental, and yet isn't at the same time.

Still - it pisses him off even more.

Shaking his head from side to side, Daryl actually lets a chuckle escape from his lips. "Me?" he asks, sarcasm laced in his voice alongside the faint laughter. " _I_ need to calm down? An' jus' how the hell did you figure _that?_ You're the one who was actually gonna let him in there. You were gonna -"

Up until now, Daryl has only been torn away from his thoughts and his speech by the sound of his name being spoken; and this time is no different, either. However, it is different by the way that it is the sound of _her_ voice - her small, soft and tired voice; her gentle and confused and concerned voice - that stops him dead in his tracks halfway through his bitter rant.

There's still something about the way that his name sounds when it falls from Beth's tongue that doesn't really sit well with Daryl. It's not as though it necessarily sounds bad - hell, it probably sounds better than it ever has done before in his entire life - but it makes him feel uneasy nonetheless.

At the sound of her voice calling his name, the tension disappears from Daryl's body almost immediately, and the angry words that had formed in his mind and had been ready to fall from his tongue so freely just seconds before have evaporated into the air now, and the biker knows for a fact that he wouldn't be able to recall them; not even if he tried. Instead of thinking too much about what he had been saying to Rick (and simultaneously pushing away all of the things that Beth could have possibly heard him saying), Daryl focuses his attention on where Beth is standing almost too close to him in the doorway of the bedroom.

(The bedroom that is technically his, but may as well be hers now.)

It takes him a few seconds to realise that there's a frown on her pretty face as her big blue eyes dance over him, and Daryl swallows down the lump in his throat that has gathered since he laid his eyes upon her. As her light eyes narrow and trail over his shoulder so that she's looking at Rick and Carol, Daryl chooses to take in her form; and his ears burn red when he realises that she's still wearing one of his plain tee-shirts -

\- and _christ,_ that's all that she's wearing, too.

In all fairness, Daryl thinks to himself that the bruises that are littered across her fair skin are beginning to fade impressively, and he's glad to note that she's healing. There are still some that are quite severe, but the majority of the marks are more shades of yellow and green as opposed to purple and black. The scars on her face - one on her cheek, another on her forehead - are evidently nowhere near healed, but they look much better now, too, and he tries to see it as a positive thing; tries to see it all as a good sign.

(And he tries his hardest not to think too much about the men that marked her in this cruel way in the first place; tries not to bother himself too much about the things that he is going to do to them to make sure that they pay for even considering hurting her, never mind actually doing it.)

"Is everything okay?"

It's her voice that once again brings Daryl back to the real world; and as her questioning tone pulls him out of the depths of his muddled mind, the biker notices that Beth's eyes are now locked firmly on his own as opposed to still glancing past his broad body. Behind him, both Rick and Carol are silent - which makes a pleasant change, Daryl supposes - and he almost forgets that either of them are even still there as he jerkily nods his head in response to Beth's question.

"Yeah," he says, his voice hoarse as a result of the yelling just a few minutes prior, but his tone gentle all the same. He's so close to her in the entryway of the bedroom that all he would have to do is stretch out his arm so that he could cup her heart shaped face in one of his hands, and whilst he thinks to himself that Beth would respond kindly to his touch - she's yet to shy away from him, anyway - there's still something inside of him that won't allow it. "S'fine. Everything's fine."

His words probably aren't reassuring whatsoever, and Daryl can most definitely tell by the look on her pretty face that the blonde doesn't really believe him at all, but Beth doesn't push the matter any further. Instead, she chooses to spare another quick and sceptical look over his shoulder at Rick and Carol before she slowly backs away, her narrowed eyes returning to meet with his own as she moves to close the bedroom door.

And then the words fall from his lips before he can even think about them, never mind actually _stop_ them.

"I'll be back in in a minute," Daryl says to her, his voice still soft as his deep blue eyes stay on her own. If Beth is surprised at his words, she doesn't show it at all; in fact, she looks completely at ease as she softly nods her own head before stepping further back inside of the bedroom, closing the door to it behind her.

Daryl finds himself staring at the wood of the door for a good few seconds before he finally turns his head over his shoulder, wasting no time to glare straight over at Rick. He may have forgotten what it was that he had been saying to the sheriff, but Daryl still knows that he's angry at the man for coming here like this - and he's pretty angry at Carol, too, for letting him inside the apartment in the first place - and he isn't going to pretend that Beth has enough power over him to calm him down completely.

That's a choice that he has to make on his own, and right now, it's not something that he's prepared to consider.

* * *

The surprising thing about Merle Dixon is that despite everything there is to say otherwise - for example, being the president of a biker gang, selling illegal weapons, and - the kicker for Daryl at the minute - having a rape charge against him - he is actually a nice guy.

Sometimes.

Well - sort of.

In his own dysfunctional and fucked-up way, anyway.

It's not something that Daryl really remembers very often - with good reason, in all fairness, because the majority of the time; Merle Dixon is a selfish asshole. But in his defence, there are the odd few times when it does come to mind that Merle is actually a good guy when he wants to be, and as the two brothers straddle their bikes and sit side-by-side in the middle of the parking lot of the garage that they own, Daryl is reminded of that.

"How is she?" Merle asks as he lights up a cigarette, and Daryl is honest to god so surprised that Merle has actually even remembered anything at all about Beth and the injuries that she sustained as a result of The Governor that he can't find any words to answer him, and instead he just ends up blinking directly at his older brother, his brows furrowed and lips parted in a manner that is somewhat gormless.

Of course Daryl knew that it was Beth who his older brother was talking about, but Merle obviously doesn't quite realise the actual reason as to why Daryl is looking so dumbfounded in that moment, and instead he mistakes his younger sibling's surprise as confusion. The older of the two lets out an arrogant snort before he begins to suck on his cigarette, and once he has taken a drag of it, he unnecessarily elaborates.

"The girl," the bald headed man says, a smirk on his face as he speaks. Merle tilts his chin as he exhales the thick smoke from his mouth, his bright blue eyes following it as it disappears into the air. "How's she doin'? Holdin' up okay?"

As the initial shock of Merle thinking about anyone but himself begins to wear off, it takes Daryl a few seconds to compose himself fully, and then he is quickly nodding his head in recognition of his brother's question. Some stuttered, messy explanation of her physical state glides out of his mouth without him really meaning for it too - something along the lines of _she's doin' good_ and _those bastards got her pretty bad_ and _Carol says that she's gonna be alright, just gotta let her heal -_ but if Merle picks up on Daryl's nervousness, then he doesn't mention it.

Nodding his head, Merle breathes in another long drag of his cigarette before he speaks up again; and Daryl's broad shoulders almost sag in relief at the realisation that his older brother has changed the subject matter of their conversation.

"Gotta go down to the station tomorrow," Merle says, inhaling more of the cigarette as Daryl cocks his head and narrows his eyes. The younger of the two doesn't need to say anything for Merle to know what he's silently asking him. "Need to try an' smoothen' out some o' this shit with Candy," he says, shaking his head as he speaks; and his tone is so casual and light - as though they're talking about the god-damned weather, not some crazy bitch who set up a rape charge against him in an attempt to weasel some money out of the club - that Daryl almost chuckles.

"You reckon it'll blow over?" Daryl asks, unable to keep the frown from his face.

That's another thing about Merle, though (one that's not quite as easy to forget, in all fairness): he is incredibly overconfident. It's almost to the point where his arrogance and his smug attitude is damned near dangerous; and whilst Daryl is quite the opposite of his brother - definitely more of a quiet introvert - he is especially glad that he doesn't have Merle's overwhelming sense of self-importance.

Daryl's older brother has always figured that he's been untouchable, and whilst that attitude has worked for him just fine so far, Daryl isn't stupid enough to believe that it will allow Merle to coast his way through the rest of his life with such ease and simplicity.

So Merle laughs as he stomps out his cigarette onto the grey concrete floor of the parking lot, shaking his head from side to side as he does so.

"Baby bro," he coos, flashing his teeth in a wolfish grin as he looks back up at Daryl. "When the hell _don't_ it?"

* * *

It's late when Daryl finally stumbles back into his apartment - gone midnight, at the earliest - and despite the fact that he is absolutely exhausted, he still makes sure that he checks all of the windows and then the front door again to make sure that everywhere is locked up tightly before he makes his way towards the bedroom to check up on Beth.

There's a part of him that feels a little bit guilty for leaving her today, but she had seemed so much better earlier on - clearly she was able to move around much better on her own now, and her skin had cleared up an impressive amount - and Daryl had honestly not thought that he would have been out of the apartment for as long as he was. After he had practically shoved Rick out of the door (with Carol quickly following his lead before Daryl could even spare another glance in her direction), the biker had kept true to his word and had re-entered his bedroom, only to find that Beth had collapsed underneath the sheets once again.

He had felt so _strange,_ hovering over the edge of the bed as he watched her sleep; and yet he had felt so calm and natural at the same time, too - to the point where this time, he couldn't help himself but to reach out a hand and cup her face, allowing his thumb to ever so gently trail over the marred skin of her cheek. A soft sigh had escaped her lips at his tenderness and the blonde had nuzzled herself further into his large hand as if giving him the permission that he needed to touch her more freely, more confidently; but the unconscious movement had been enough to freak Daryl out and cause him to back away from her quickly.

As he slowly pushes open the bedroom door - wincing inadvertently as it groans in protest - he can't help but be a little bit taken aback to find that the room has been emerged into darkness. There had been a large part of Daryl that had been expecting for Beth to still be awake, to be waiting up for him. He had been expecting her to be furious about the fact that he had left her earlier on after telling her that he would come back inside the bedroom, for her to unleash her anger out on him as a result of his own actions.

But instead, he finds her to be sprawled out in the middle of his large bed with her long, recently brushed hair fanned out around her on all of his pillows; and Daryl is incredibly thankful for the moonlight that is creeping through the small cracks in the curtains so that he can see the outline of her form much clearer than he would do without its presence.

And _god,_ she really is the most glorious thing that he has ever looked at in his whole life, and even with her scars and her bruises and her cut lip and her sweaty tee-shirt (or _his_ sweaty tee shirt, more like), Daryl knows that he'll never come across anything as beautiful as her ever again.

It is almost impossible to resist the magnetic pull that she has upon his body - the body that he has always been so in control of, the body that he has never had to fight against just to keep his sanity - and Daryl sits down on the mattress beside her as gently as he can, trying his best not to allow the dip that his weight creates in it to disturb her sleeping form. The darkness that blankets them once again encourages Daryl to be brave, and he doesn't even try to fight the temptation to reach out one of his arms towards her; cupping her cheek in his large hand once again.

This time, the sigh that escapes her lips as a result of his touch seems to be much more present; but Daryl is so caught up in the feeling of her soft, warm skin underneath his callous hand that he doesn't really register it, and he allows his thumb to trail over her scar once again - back and forth, back and forth - practically caressing it as he stares down at her face. The girl is practically perfection, even like this - _especially_ like this - and an overwhelming sense of possessiveness bubbles up within his chest as he takes in all of her pretty features.

The biker doesn't even have time to blink his eyes once before Beth's own are wide open and staring straight up at him, and the realisation of that fact has Daryl stiffening completely. His hand is still cupping her face, yes; but he has stilled in his movements of stroking her cheek with his thumb, and the man looks very much like a deer caught in headlights as he looks directly back down at her, deep blue eyes wider than usual and his breath caught in his throat.

 _Caught._

Hell, she really _has_ caught him red-handed; but Beth doesn't seem t be too displeased at all about the fact that he has been touching her.

In fact, Daryl realises that she's actually smiling up at him now; not just looking. Her lips are curved upwards in a gesture that is both soft and gentle, and even though he doesn't visibly relax, his heart stops thundering so loudly in his chest as he realises that this is something that she might actually be enjoying. The look that she has on her face isn't quite as bold as a grin - in fact, it's something much calmer, much more serene; and it draws him in like a moth to a flame.

She has that effect on a man, Beth Greene, and Daryl ain't exactly one of the best of 'em, so it's not like he's going to stop her.

And to be fair to himself, there is a part of him that does want to fight this burning desire that he has for Beth - a part of him that wants to squash this powerful need to have her close by him, a part of him that wants to just be done with it all completely. It's just so unlike him to feel this way about anyone at all; but Daryl doesn't even know where on earth to begin with it, so he figures that it would be impossible to try and end it, too.

And that's the thing - there's another part of him that doesn't actually want her to be gone from his life. Not at all. A part of him that wants Beth Greene as close to him as she possibly can be; a part of him that doesn't want to shut her out and push her away, not even when he logically knows that the girl would more than likely be much better off without him in her life at all.

There's a part of him that thinks it might be too late for all of that, anyway.

You can't change the past; and she's already here now, lay in his bed, smiling up at him so peacefully. And he doesn't quite hate it.

"Daryl," she says, her voice barely a whisper into the darkness as she slowly blinks up at him; both the speed of her movements and her speech languid, as though she is completely aware of this spell that she has put onto him, as though she doesn't want to move too quickly or push too hard and end up breaking it in the process. The blonde might not know him very well, but she obviously isn't stupid - hell, she's at college studying to be a vet, for christ's sake - and it more than likely doesn't take a genius to figure out that Daryl Dixon can be easily scared off at intimate times such as these.

Whatever it is that she's doing to him is working, and Daryl can practically feel himself being sucked in deeper and deeper; pulled in even closer to her orbit, stuck floating around her forever.

"Mmhmm," he murmurs, absolutely fascinated by the sight of her licking her lips. She's teasing him, he's sure, but it's such a wonderful sight to see that he will happily allow for her to tease him in this manner forever.

The smile on her face broadens ever so slightly, and Beth looks impossibly more beautiful as she continues to stare up at him, her light blue eyes locked tightly onto his own. "Stay with me," she whispers up at him, her eyes practically dancing and shining with hope as they glisten in the pale moonlight. There's something hopeful in her voice that he can sense, and despite the fact that it's more of a question than an order, Beth murmurs out a strong _please_ as she waits for his response.

But by now, he's thought it before and he'll think it again: who is he to refuse her of anything at all?

(There's no touching now as he shuffles beneath the blankets beside her and lies flat on his back on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling of the room with half-closed eyes; but the way that Beth knowingly smiled at him as he shuffled in next to her has Daryl feeling as though this girl knows full well what it is that he's thinking - and he'll be damned if that isn't a problem in itself.)

* * *

 **As always, thank you so much for reading and please let me know what you think!**


	13. Chapter 13

In the early hours of the afternoon - or it could be the later hours, for all that she knows - Beth slowly blinks her light blue eyes open into the room to find that she is not alone in the bed that she is quickly growing accustomed to. Light is creeping into the room through the small gap in the middle of the curtains - the ones that were definitely not drawn by her, so they must have been drawn by him - and from underneath them, too; and as Beth turns her head and rolls her body over so that she can get a proper look at the man who is still sleeping beside her, a happy smile ghosts across her lips.

It's not as though she loves him, because of course she doesn't. Beth doesn't know much at all about this man other than his name and that this is his apartment; and she's met a few of the people who belong to his club, too - the men that he calls his brother's, despite the fact that they certainly aren't blood - and she's visited the garage that he works at (the garage that he _owns),_ but that still doesn't mean that she knows him.

And it certainly doesn't mean that she loves him, either.

But she likes him. Likes him a lot, in fact. And she doesn't know what to really _do_ with that.

Despite the fact that Daryl has obviously made a conscious effort to keep some distant between the pair of them during the night, Beth is still warmed by the knowledge that he is still there beside her; and despite the fact that he barely ever touches her and sometimes can hardly seem to be able to look at her properly, Beth thinks that his presence alone might truly be all that matters. For now.

The thing is, his company might not seem like all that much in the grand scheme of things; but it's just another little something that this man has offered to her without want of anything in return. This man who barely even knows her at all, but so obviously wants to protect her from harm, so clearly torn up about what happened to her that night and the days after, this man who blames himself for it all.

It's in his eyes, she thinks. The guilt. The sorrow. The pain. He might not give her much in terms of words, but his body language and his _eyes - goodness,_ his _eyes_ , always his eyes - tell her everything that he cannot seem to verbalise.

It doesn't take a genius at all to work out that Daryl Dixon is becoming a little _possessive_ of her, so to speak. And it should probably worry her, the way that he is about her - the way that he behaved towards Rick Grimes yesterday. It had been very difficult not to hear the things that the two men had been saying to each other when they were only stood in the hallway and she in the bedroom, and it wasn't like either of them were necessarily talking quietly. But, surprisingly enough, it had been Daryl who has the louder of the two; and if that hadn't caused her to be even a little bit taken aback, then the things that Beth had overheard Daryl saying to the man that she knows to be the town sheriff certainly had.

It's a difficult thing to consider, because Beth just wasn't naive or deluded enough to believe that Daryl Dixon wasn't something akin to trouble; and it would be incredibly stupid of the blonde to think that he was anything close to being just another typical small-town guy - all _darlin'_ s and charming smiles and southern rock. Goodness, the fact that he was the Vice President of a motorcycle club - innocent or not - was surely enough of a hint to her, as well as to everyone else in this town, that there was a different side to him.

It was a side of him that she hadn't really been presented with as of yet, but a side that she knew would inevitably rear its head.

But the matter of actually stumbling across something close to that other side of Daryl had been something that Beth had never actually found herself thinking about all that much. And maybe it should have been on her mind a little bit more, but all that she could think about was how _good_ he always was to her - how gentle and soft and somewhat even _shy_ (unless he had alcohol in his system, and then that had been a different matter entirely) - so when he had blown up at the sheriff yesterday, the blonde had naturally been surprised about it all and didn't know what to do or say in regards to it. From the pure anger that she had easily detected in his usually quiet and calm voice - gruff, yes, and sometimes agitated, but never anything close to furious - to the way that his broad body had been pulled tight as he blocked the entryway to the bedroom - blocked the way to _her -_ everything about his interaction with Rick (and Carol too, she recalls) surprised her.

Thing is: it didn't scare her, though.

Not at all.

And maybe that's another thing that should be done - another thing that she should feel. _Fear._ Maybe Beth should honestly really be frightened of Daryl; of him and his 'brother's' and his club and gosh, probably just his _life_ in general. Maybe she should be fearing for her very own life right now - after what happened to her over the course of the last week or so, Beth imagines that nobody in particular could actually blame her for being incredibly paranoid about near enough everything - and maybe she should genuinely want to be anywhere else but here, anywhere other than inside of Daryl Dixon's apartment.

 _But she's not scared of him._

Beth Greene. Tiny little Beth Greene, all big blue eyes and long blonde hair and soft singing and guitar playing - and she's not scared of Daryl Dixon.

She hasn't ever been, though; not from the first day that the two of them ever locked eyes with each other, not from the time that they first spoke (and _alright,_ so maybe she had been a little bit jumpy that night, but it definitely hadn't been because she was scared of _him_ as much as it had been that she was scared of her own shadow), and certainly not now. So it's only understandable that a large part of her assumes that if she isn't frightened of him now, and she hasn't been frightened of him before, then she's not actually ever going to be.

It might make her stupid. Because maybe she really should be frightened and scared. Maybe she should want to avoid him like the plague. And maybe she should try her best to forget all about him and his club. Maybe she should bolt at the first opportunity and leave it all behind.

Maybe she should avoid him, never speak to him ever again. Maybe she should run - run away, far from here; far from where he could ever find her again.

 _But maybe she doesn't want to do any of that._

The way that Beth sees it, there really is absolutely nothing for her to be frightened of when it comes to Daryl Dixon. Yes, he might have blown up at Rick yesterday, and he might have been acting a little too harshly towards the man; but the blonde reasons with herself that, in all fairness, Daryl was doing for _her._

Her very own prince charming.

Alright, so he wasn't quite _that,_ but he was something all the same. After all, he had wanted to protect her - she just knew it. He didn't want the sheriff entering in the bedroom where he thought that she was sleeping - the one room where she had felt safe since the attack on her body, the one room that she had found peace inside of over the course of the last few days, even after she drenched the bed and he changed the sheets. Daryl hadn't wanted her to be bothered or disturbed or questioned for that matter, and he hadn't wanted her to feel as though she had been pushed into a corner or intimidated - like she absolutely _had_ to talk to Rick, like she had no other choice but to fill him in on everything that had happened to her.

None of that had been vocalised to her, of course; but whilst Daryl seemed quite difficult to read in those first few days, Beth thought that she was really starting to get the hang of understanding him - picking up on his actions more than his words and watching his body for answers instead of thinking too long on his short, usually stunted responses - and Beth knew in her heart that he, in his own (possibly dysfunctional, maybe even slightly inappropriate) way had been trying his god-damned best to look after her.

Daryl had wanted to keep her safe from harm in a way that he hadn't been able to the week before, and even though it was so messed up - because he wasn't her protector or her guard and he couldn't very well save her from everything around them - the thought alone of him feeling that way towards her had Beth feeling as though she was floating.

Because yes: despite the fact that the two of them barely even know one another (gosh, Beth really does doubt that he even can remember her second name or what she's studying in college), the blonde is absolutely positive that this man will never, ever hurt her or bring her any harm - not purposely, and definitely not if he can help it, not if he can prevent it. Of course he might very well be trouble, but he's not _bad;_ and despite it all, Beth can feel herself well and truly falling over the edge for him.

(Maybe _that's_ something to be scared of, though.)

* * *

When Beth finally awakes once more (not quite conscious enough yet to realise that she must have fallen back to sleep whilst lying beside Daryl much earlier on) it's late on in the evening - perhaps even in the night, considering how dark the room is due to the lack of light that would be seeping through the curtains otherwise. Despite the fact that she is absolutely starving - to the point where her stomach is cramping and filled with shooting pains alongside grumbling and gurgling loudly in complaint - it is the sound of hushed voices murmuring to one another just outside of the bedroom door that catches her immediate attention.

And within half of a second - if even that - her body enters a state of complete and utter panic.

To anyone else outside of her mind, it might seem to be a little bit - if not a _lot -_ over-dramatic; the way that her light blue eyes fling wide open, the way that her body tenses up and stiffens completely, the way that her breath gets caught up in her throat in a manner that has her gasping into the dark air, the way that her hands begin to tremble...

All at the mere sound of whispers.

But as her body wakes itself up and she begins to make sense of things, Beth realises that the whispers are _men's_ voices; and it's no real wonder why her psychological state is in overdrive after what has happened to her recently. There's no light at all in the bedroom - none from the moon, not tonight, and not even any from the assistance of the street lamps that she knows are outside - and the darkness is eery, creepy, and it makes the whispers seem even worse.

Honestly, it's a relief to Beth that she didn't piss in the bed once again because of the combination.

For a good few seconds, all that Beth had been able to hear in her ears was the sound of her heart pounding wildly in fright - reminding her of some of the rabbit's that she has worked on in college and the way that their delicate hearts beat so quickly inside of their small bodies, panicked at the smallest thing - but eventually, the beating slows down and the throb of it fades, meaning that soon enough Beth is able to hear much better. Almost as soon as she is able to, the blonde recognises one of the voices to belong to Daryl; and - for the time being, at least - that fact alone is enough to calm her right down.

For the first time since waking up, Beth allows herself to relax.

Of course her heart is still strongly beating against her chest, but it's not necessarily pounding and racing in the almost violent way that it had been doing before; and as she pushes herself up in bed so that she is leaning on her elbows, Beth instinctively reaches out one of her arms in a blind attempt to find the light switch and flick it on. Her intention is to illuminate the bedroom so that she can actually see enough to get up (mainly to make herself something to eat, because she is really, _really_ hungry), and at first, the only reason that the blonde can possibly think of to not switch on the light is because it would probably hurt her eyes for a good few seconds whilst she adjusts to the brightness, but then -

\- then Beth finds herself hesitating for a different reason entirely, and whilst her light eyes struggle to make out the outline of the bedroom door in the darkness of the room, her ears are sharp enough to pick up from where the whispers now seem to be coming out much faster and even slightly louder. As her body wakes up further, Beth begins to feel more like her actual self; and it doesn't take very long at all before curiosity soon comes swooping down over her mind just before she can make the decision to turn on the light.

As she lazily drops her hand from it's place on the wall so that it is once again beside her on the mattress, Beth thinks to herself that maybe - just perhaps, if she manages to do this the right way, if she can actually find it within her to pull the whole thing off - she can go undetected by Daryl and his companion for a little while longer.

But oh _god,_ that would be so wrong and she knows it - so invasive and rude and more than anything, just plain _nosey._ It would make her no better than any of the gossips who live in this town - the ones that she well and truly despises after the rumours that circled as a result of her mother's death and her brother's flee to the city - and all that Daryl and his friends (it almost feels incorrect describing them in that way, but despite the fact that he calls them his brother's, Beth knows that his only brother is Merle) have been to her is welcoming and caring and accepting.

Plus, there's the fact that Daryl and his companion are obviously speaking quietly for a reason; and perhaps it's because they just might be being thoughtful and kind towards her, trying to make sure that they don't disturb her or bother her...

... or, maybe it's something completely different entirely, and that thought drags her in like a magnet. She's weak to the pull of it and it's so hard to ignore the feeling that she wants to know more; wants to know what it is that they're saying, wants to know why they're whispering, wants to know what they have to hide.

Nibbling on her bottom lip and tugging on the skin with her teeth harshly enough so that it rips off and begins to bleed, Beth just can't help herself but try and listen closer to what the men are talking about as she attempts to figure out exactly what it is that is going on outside of the bedroom door. It's incredibly difficult to make out anything whilst she is sat in bed so far away from where the whispers are coming from, and after a couple of seconds of deliberation, Beth finds that it's pretty much impossibly to not give in to her generally curious nature.

As quietly as she possibly can, Beth wastes no time in throwing the warm covers away from her slender body and she begins to make her way towards the bedroom door, deliberately making as little noise as possible so not to alert the men on the other side of it of her presence. Her muscles are tight and ache due to the fact that she has been lay in bed for as long as she has; but it's been difficult to do much whilst she has been recovering, and everyone who she has seen - mostly Daryl and Carol, but a few of the other club members have stopped by to check up on her, too (well - probably to talk to Daryl, but they've popped in and introduced themselves) - has been strongly opinionated about the fact that she really shouldn't be leaving the apartment until she's completely healed.

The time is approaching quickly, too - she can tell by the way that the bruises are changing in colour so that her skin has almost returned to it's pale self, by the way that the swelling of her injuries has reduced greatly (particularly her ankles and her wrists as well as her face). The scars on her forehead and her cheek are still very much present - she hasn't looked properly in a mirror for a day or two, but she can feel them as they begin to scab on her face - and the blonde has already come to terms with the fact that they will most likely be a permanent fixture now.

And it's all well and good her telling her daddy and her sister and her best friend that she's going to be staying just a few extra nights at her friends house closer to campus, and it's also all well and good telling her tutors that she has picked up a horrible sickness bug that's left her feeling far too weak to actually attend classes; but Beth honestly doesn't have a clue how on earth she's going to explain the scars to anybody.

With a bit of luck, maybe some foundation will help to conceal them.

As she steps closer towards the bedroom door, Beth accepts the fact that sneaking around in this way really isn't fair to the man who has allowed her to stay in his bed for such a long period of time; and maybe it would be bad if he realised that she was there, that she was listening; or maybe it wouldn't be a big deal at all. Either way, Beth doesn't want to find out, and she wants to continue to remain this way - _undetected._ She wants to listen in on what she can only assume to be a conversation that she really shouldn't be hearing.

But god, it's just so hard to resist the pull of it all - honestly, it is - and Beth has always been a naturally curious girl. Besides, after everything that has happened to her recently, she thinks to herself that maybe it would be a good idea for her to be more clued up on everything that's going on around her.

She has been moving ever so slowly towards the bedroom door, trying her best to step over the floorboards that creak only ever so slightly underneath her small weight, concerned that maybe Daryl - or his companion, she supposes - will even hear a slight sound from inside of the bedroom and come barrelling through the door to see what's going on.

Unsteadily, Beth presses her palms against the cool wood of the door and takes a second or two to compose herself; to inhale and exhale deeply before she leans her body closer towards the surface of it. The blonde shuffles ever so slightly towards it so that she is almost pressed up against it; and although it does take a moment for Beth to adjust to the sounds as she rests the side of her head against the door, when she presses herself against it with slightly more force so that her earlobe is well and truly blocked in against it, she finds that she can suddenly hear much better.

Beth's intentions had been clear from the start, however, it still actually shocks her how close the voices actually sound to her ears now that she's stood here, in this position; and Beth can't help but wish that there was also some sort of peep hole for her to look out of to see where exactly the men are stood. From the way that the words sound so much clearer now, Beth imagines that they must be very, very close to her; but given the fact that she is pressed against the door in a manner that appears to be almost desperate, she supposes that she might be wrong.

"Can't carry on like this, Merle," a voice that she recognises to be Daryl's says, and despite the fact that he is definitely still whispering, his voice is the one that appears to be the loudest, appears to be closest.

Beth keeps that knowledge at the forefront of her mind - or attempts to, at least - and thinks that it might be important. If Daryl was or is planning on visiting her tonight, then she needs to be ready to bolt her way back over towards the bed and dive underneath the covers before he has a chance to properly catch her in the act of it.

"Can't let him get away with it - not this. Fuck - did you see what he _did to her?_ Or was that jus' me?"

The words are still whispered, but the tone of Daryl's voice is strained; and Beth can clearly make out the pain and the anger inside of it - inside of _him -_ as he speaks. Still very much so pressed against the surface of the door - her body and her palms and her ear pressed flat against it - Beth visibly swallows, and her heart races a little when she comprehends the fact that Daryl is talking about her.

Whoever _he_ is, Beth can't be sure, but she imagines it's the man who Carol spoke to her about, the one that she mentioned - _The Governor._ The one who they thought to have attacked her, or at least planned for it; a rival to the club, to the Brother's.

"I ain't sayin' that, Daryl," a different voice says, an _unfamiliar_ voice, but a voice that she thinks still suits Merle Dixon all the same, despite the fact that they have never officially met one another (she thinks that he visited her in the apartment whilst she was sleeping or properly unconscious, but she can't actually remember it). " _Believe me,_ brother. I ain't sayin' that at _all._ "

Someone - Daryl, it must be Daryl, because it has to be someone who is close enough to the door for her to be able to hear something so small like that anyway - lets out a frustrated huff, and Beth can clearly picture him in her mind right now: clenched fists, broad shoulders, prominent frown...

He's handsome in such a brooding manner, and there's really just something about Daryl Dixon that always seems to draw her in - even at the most inappropriate times.

"Then wha' _are_ you sayin', _brother?_ " Daryl bites back, and his voice is growing louder by the second.

Before Merle gets any chance to respond to his younger brother's statement, a woman's voice meets her ears - one that Beth quickly realises belongs to Carol. The only difference in her way of speaking is that the older woman isn't whispering, or even attempting to. It isn't as though she is talking very loudly, no; but she's not exactly whispering, either.

Beth thinks to herself that this woman is either much more careless or much more bold than the brother's are - or goodness, maybe she's both - and the thought of that has her smiling despite herself.

It's difficult to really make assumptions about any of these people considering the fact that it isn't as though Beth actually knows any of them, and these are people that a girl like Beth Greene - a good girl, a sweet girl, a small-town girl; goodness, she's a _god damned farmer's daughter,_ in case anyone forgot - isn't used to being around, doesn't know what quite to expect from them. People who Beth Greene hasn't exactly mingled with or ever really met before, people who she hasn't interacted with in any capacity.

She trusts Daryl, though, so she trusts them - or at least some of them, anyway - but if she doesn't know the biker, then she definitely doesn't know them, either.

"It's not all that simple," Carol says, and Beth can't see him, but she can practically _feel_ Daryl glaring at the grey haired woman from behind the door.

The blonde might now know Carol very well, but she most definitely knows - almost for a fact - that the older woman would be completely unphased by the younger brother's stare. After all, this is the woman who was beat down upon for so many years of her married life - because alright, Beth might not like the women who gossip and talk around town, but that doesn't mean she doesn't hear what it is that they're saying to one another from time to time, and word travels around this town way faster than anything she has ever known before - so it's understandable that she doesn't care much for a nasty look thrown her way by a man with a mop of dark hair wearing angel wings on the back of his vest.

"It's _not,_ " Carol says again, her calm voice growing louder and more bold, more confident by the second. "You know as well as I do that things with Blake are never simple." Blake - another thing unknown and unfamiliar to her, something else that's part of this puzzle piece that she wants - _needs -_ to figure out. Especially when it's concerning her. "The first thing he'll be expecting - an' _wanting -_ from you all is a reaction. An' I _know_ you can see through that."

For a long moment, everyone is quiet, and then Carol speaks again. "An' there's so many questions that we have," the woman continues, her voice steady as she speaks. "Things that don't make sense; things that he has the upper hand on us over, things that don't add up on our side."

"Like _wha'_?" Daryl asks, his own voice growing louder and sounding more frustrated by the second.

Becoming increasingly intrigued by all of this information, Beth shifts herself impossibly closer towards the door, thinking that she might actually find out something this way.

Well - it's not like anyone has been at all prepared to tell her anything so far, anyway.

"Well, all this _crap_ with Candy is hardly going to be comin' from just _her_ now, is it?" Carol retorts, and although that doesn't make any sense to Beth - the name doesn't ring any bells, and it doesn't sound at all familiar, either - she stores it away in the back of her mind for future reference in the hopes that she might find out. "An' why would Philip think that Beth Greene is your ' _old lady_ ', anyway?" the woman asks, her tone sceptical, and Beth's entire body stiffens against the door and simultaneously flushes red from embarrassment at those words. "You never said where the hell he got that idea from."

Picturing Daryl's physical response to that question is difficult for her, and Beth hears him clear his throat before he speaks - a simple, mumbled _idunno._

At that, a heavy sigh comes from Carol - signalling to Beth that the woman might just know a little bit more about this situation between the two of them than she's letting on - and just as Beth is beginning to relax again after the mentioning of her name, she feels someone's hand reach out and wrap around the door handle. They don't quite tug it all the way down so that the door opens, but they do lean on it, and Beth begins to panic once again.

"'M done with this shit," Daryl's voice says, and Beth's heart beats rapidly in her chest as she flees away from the door.

"Daryl," Carol begins, but the man cuts her off with his own words.

"No," he says. "Jus' let yourself outta here. When you decide you wanna actually _do_ somethin' to help me fix this mess, then let me know." His voice is no longer a whisper, and she can hear him clearer now without even really trying to. "But I ain't waitin' around for fuckin' ever - not after what he _did._ "

Not wanting to dally around, Beth practically throws herself onto the mattress. Her movements are a little bit louder than she had been hoping for them to be, but it isn't as though the thing collapses underneath her, so that's a bonus, and she messily throws the covers over her body before she dips her head into one of the pillows and squeezes her light eyes tightly shut.

She has never been all that good at acting, so Beth hopes that Daryl - well, Beth assumes that it's him who just opened the door to the bedroom and literally slammed it shut behind him - is convinced when she groans at the sound and sleepily rolls over in the bed, stretching out and attempting to convince him that it's woken her up. It only takes a moment or two before he is by her side, looming over her in the bed; the outline of his face expressing concern and worry.

"Hey," he whispers, one of his large hands coming up to cup her face. The way that he is speaking to her is so soft and gentle, and it takes a short while for Beth to realise that he must still think that she's sleeping, that he must be hoping he can send her back to her slumber after disturbing her. "Hey, hey," he continues, his calloused thumb stroking over her scarred cheek. "S'ok, girl. S'alright. Go back to sleep," he breathes, and despite the fact that she's wide awake - gosh, with the adrenaline pumping through her body, it would be pretty difficult for her not to be - Beth falls into the role and lets out what she hopes is a calm sigh before her body stills.

She pretends to fall back to sleep, and it's a strange feeling behaving this way. If she hadn't felt deceitful before, then she most definitely feels that way now, but she pushes on with her pretence and gently hums as Daryl strokes his thumb over her marred skin once more before he finally drops his hand. Immediately, Beth misses the contact, but it's not too long before he's shuffling his way into the bed beside her and resting his head onto the pillow.

It's exciting to think that he'll be spending another night by his side, even if she knows that this won't last much longer; that at some point, she has to return home, back to the farm, back to her father.

But for now, all that's really on her mind is how she'll ever be able to get to sleep tonight considering how hungry she is - and how wide awake she is now, too - is beyond her, and since it feels as though all she has done is sleep all day, she knows that slumber won't be finding her any time soon. Still, the sound of Daryl's steady breathing is calming enough for her - for now, at least - and her eyes open in the darkness at the sound of his murmured voice.

"Christ," he says, and she looks over at where she knows that he's lying - still seeming to be so far away from her, so distant, and she wishes that he was closer - and even if she can't actually see him in the darkness, she can picture him clearly in her mind. "What are you _doin'_ to me, girl?" he says, voice barely above a whisper, and the words have Beth's heart practically clenching in her chest.

She wishes that she could respond - wishes that she could ask what he means, that she could push him to clarify, that she could tell him that he's wrong; that it's _him_ who has no idea what he's doing to _her._ But wishes aside, Beth knows that she wouldn't get anywhere with him - that he wouldn't know what to say to her anyway, that she wouldn't know what to say back to him - and so she doesn't worry her mind about it too much.

Instead, she tries her best to keep her heart calm and her breathing steady, and after a while of staring at the ceiling, Daryl begins to snore beside her.

The sound is strangely calming, and she can't help but smile because of it.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think :)! I know there's not much actual Bethyl in this chapter but this is a slow burn story and I wanted to have a bit more plot in here along with more of Beth's thoughts. The next chapter is half-written, though, and I'm warning you in advance that there's a reason this story is rated M.**

 **I'm back from my holiday now so I also just wanted to add that hopefully updates should be a little bit quicker once again.. Maybe not every day, but probably every other or maybe every three days or so. Fingers crossed.**


	14. Chapter 14

**As always, thank you so much for all of your amazing reviews so far for this story. I really, really appreciate them - so thank you.**

 **I ended up changing the plan for this chapter because it got waaaay too long, so I've basically had to split it in half. Also, there's a time jump in this chapter; so we jump straight to Beth not staying at Daryl's apartment anymore, and she's back at the farmhouse now. It's mainly so I can move on with the plot as nothing more 'interesting' was going to be set at the apartment now, but I will re-visit it in Beth and Daryl's thoughts etc, so it doesn't feel or seem like too much of a huge change.**

 **But yeah. I hope you all enjoy!**

* * *

"What in the hell happened to your face?"

 _Ah._ Maggie Greene.

Expert at subtlety, and always a pleasure.

With a gentle sigh, Beth tried her hardest to keep her facial expression composed as she locked the door to her truck, shoving the keys to it in the back pocket of her jeans. Maggie's apartment is located on the bottom floor of a three story block, and as the blonde glances around her, she's relieved to notice that there's nobody else around. It's not as though she's some sort of social hermit, and she knows that the word is going to get round about her messed up face sooner or later; but for the time being, Beth would rather it happened later.

Although her sister shouting her mouth off about it so that the whole town can hear isn't exactly helping in the matter.

Not wanting to linger around, Beth took a couple of long strides in Maggie's direction, effectively closing the distance between herself and her older sibling. There, the brunette is standing in the middle of the entryway to her apartment wearing a tee-shirt that Beth assumes belongs to Glenn and a pair of cotton pyjama shorts, and the expression that she wears on her face is a mixture of both concern and confusion whilst her hazel eyes trail over Beth's appearance from head to toe.

The blonde isn't stupid, and she picks up on the way that Maggie's eyes hover over her bottom lip - which is actually kind of frustrating, because it's healed really quite well, and Beth had thought this morning that it wasn't even noticeable - and once again on the scars that line her face.

In all fairness, Beth has to accept the fact that it wasn't as though she had been expecting anything different from Maggie - in fact, she had been expecting a much worse reaction from her older sibling. After all, she had grown up with her sister and thought that she knew her better than she knew anyone else, and she had been more than prepared to be interrogated and practically harassed over her appearance along with the fact that she had basically gone AWOL for nearly two weeks straight before she had even made it out of the truck, never mind through the front door of the apartment.

Still, just because she had been prepared for it didn't mean that she actually wanted to deal with it.

Sighing once more, Beth's light eyes shoot from left to right before she focuses back on where Maggie is still staring straight at her. Clearing her throat, Beth tries her best to continue to hold her composure as she speaks, willing her voice not to shake or waver.

"Can I come in?" Beth asks, and despite the fact that she so desperately wants to keep strong - at least whilst she's outside, at least whilst she's somewhere that people might see her - her voice is still hesitant and close to unsure.

Her sister doesn't make any effort to move despite the fact that she nods her head almost immediately in acceptance of Beth's questions, and the younger of the two women can't help but frown about it. "I'll tell you everythin' inside," Beth splurts out, thinking that it's more than likely what her sister wants to hear, and she fights back a smile when Maggie cocks one of her eyebrows. "I _promise._ "

.

.

.

So. Beth tells her sister quite a lot of information.

Not quite everything, no, and not quite the truth, either; but still, she tells her a lot all the same.

In the grand scheme of things, Beth thinks that it might just count towards something.

In all honesty, convincing Maggie that she had been in a car accident (one that was far from serious or fatal in any way, of course) turned out to be nowhere near as difficult as she had been building it all up in her mind to be. However, her sister was still somewhat sceptical about the whole story from start to finish - the blonde suspected that it had less to do with Maggie's trust for her in general as much as it had to do with the fact that Maggie thought she was trying to protect her from something and/or sugar coat the details ('cause really, her older sister had _no_ idea) - and the way in which she was drilling Beth about the whole scenario had the blonde thinking that maybe her older sister wasn't quite as willing to believe the entire tale.

Not at face value, anyway.

After what felt like hours upon hours of constant questions and probing and searching for more details, Maggie finally eased off from her younger sibling a little bit; but it didn't mean that she still didn't bring up the matter later on. Whilst the two of them were eating some lunch together - fresh sandwiches that her sister had prepared quickly enough - Maggie brought up the topic once again.

"So," Maggie started, sucking some sauce from her finger before she took another bite of her sandwich. Never one for having the most perfect table manners, her older sister seemed to be completely unphased by the fact that she was chewing her food and so continued to speak. "The guys down at the garage just fixed up your truck? Again?"

The brunette had seemed particularly surprised at that information when Beth first mentioned it, and the blonde wasn't quite sure why Maggie was bringing up the topic of the garage once again, but she had a feeling that it might have something to do with the surly mechanic who owned the place as well as worked there. All that Beth could do was nod her head up and down as she chewed on her own food, and before Maggie could probe her into saying something more about it, she took a long sip of her warm coffee in the hopes that busying her mouth even further would assist in preventing her from actually having to answer her sister any more thoroughly.

As she swallowed down some more of the sandwich, Beth inwardly cursed herself for being such a terrible actress - and, whilst she's at it, a terrible person, too - but it was difficult to ignore the overwhelming feeling that lying to her sister couldn't be avoided. After all, Beth knew that there was just no way on earth that Maggie could every actually know the truth about what happened that night with The Governor - or Philip Blake, as she had learned he was called - and his men.

If Maggie knew even just some of the details about it, then the blonde knew that she would just worry and panic and over-think the situation even more than Beth had done already (which was saying something, really); and as awful as she knew it must sound, telling her sister just really was not worth the stress or the hassle.

"For free?" Maggie continued to probe, her tone light and nonchalant, but Beth could see right through it. Not wanting to behave too strangely about the whole scenario with the garage and the men who worked at it, she gulped down her sandwich and a little bit more coffee before she shrugged her shoulders up and down.

"Yeah," Beth said with a nod of her head, a small, casual smile on her lips as she looked up at her sister across the table. "They owed me from when I helped them out with a situation a couple of weeks ago, anyway, so..."

As Beth trailed off, she immediately recognised the fact that she had very obviously slipped up. Her big blue eyes widened when she clocked on to the fact that Maggie didn't know anything about the whole dog incident with Martinez - _of course she didn't know, how would she have possibly known -_ and suddenly, she felt like a huge idiot. Her cheeks began to blush a deep shade of crimson at the realisation of her mistake, and Beth smiled almost sheepishly at her sister who was now regarding her with eyes that were much more curious than before.

As the brunette pulled her brows together and tilted her head to one side, Beth suppressed a groan, trying her ultimate best to keep her cool as the older of the two girls began to push the matter even further, not bothering to hide her peaked interest about it all.

"You... _helped them out_?" Maggie repeated, squinting her hazel eyes over at her younger sibling as she spoke.

Both confusion and surprise were thick in her voice as she eyed her sister, and the small - almost smug - way in which the brunette's lips were curving upwards ever so slightly as she realised that she had well and truly caught her sister out about something new irritated Beth to a large extent.

"How?" Maggie pushed on, placing the sandwich that she had been holding in both hands back down onto the place in front of her. "When? You..." her brows pulled together as she spoke, licking her teeth for a moment before continuing. "You never said anythin' about that."

For a long few seconds, there was a tense atmosphere between the sisters - something that wasn't normally ever there between them, something foreign and almost strange. Beth mulled over the different routes that she could take her response, but in the end, she settled for shrugging her shoulders as casually as she possibly could.

"It was nothin' _big_ ," Beth said, blinking several times as she tried her best not to stutter or rush over the words as they came out of her mouth. "It was just - one of the guys who works there. At the garage, I mean. He... His dog was sick, an' he came round lookin' for daddy; but obviously... well, you know." Visibly swallowing, Beth tried her best not to be too put off by Maggie's continuous stare and continued on with her explanation.

It wasn't as though she was lying completely about this - sure, she was missing out a few important pieces of the story here and there, but it was nothing major or even anything that Maggie would really understand - and Beth reminded herself of that fact for a second before she continued.

"So, I went round instead to go see the dog, an' I helped fix it up. At the time, I didn't think anythin' of it, so didn't charge 'em - I just wanted to help. You know?" Once again, Beth's light eyes looked up to meet with Maggie's, but her sister didn't respond - physically or verbally - to the question. Instead, she just continued to stare at her with an emotionless expression on her face, giving absolutely nothing away to the younger woman. "So - well, I dunno. I guess they just sorta... Maybe feel like they _owe_ me. Or whatever."

As soon as Beth had finished with her explanation, she inhaled a long, deep breath. Once again, the blonde locked eyes with her sibling; only this time, she chose to hold her gaze instead of allowing it to drop, hoping that she was able to pull it off and stay strong. After a couple of seconds of silence had passed between them - with the two of them simply looking blankly at one another, waiting for the other to make the first move - Maggie let out an exasperated sigh before a slow, lazy smile began to creep across her face.

At the sight of her sister smiling lazily in her direction, all that Beth could do was blink in confusion; and Maggie straightened herself up in her chair before she went to take another bite of her sandwich, eyes focused on her food as she spoke up again.

Nodding her head up and down, Maggie swallowed down her food with a sudden hunger that she hadn't seemed to have possessed just a few minutes prior. "I'm just glad that you're okay," her sister said, disregarding of Beth's story and seeming to be completely disinterested in the whole matter with the garage and the men who worked there. "I just want you to make sure that you take care of yourself, you know?"

There was something in her sister's tone of voice that had Beth feeling irritated once again - maybe it was the actual way in which Maggie had said the words to her, or maybe it had something to do with Beth's guilty conscience after lying to her sister, or maybe it was something akin to _instinct_ that had her back riled up - but as soon as the words came out of Maggie's mouth, Beth found herself glancing down at her wrist; the one covered mostly by gold bangles and beaded bracelets.

And maybe her sibling hadn't meant to remind her of what she had done, maybe her statement had been innocent enough and maybe she hadn't thought a thing of it.

Or maybe Maggie Greene wasn't anywhere near that stupid, and maybe this was her way of reminding Beth about that.

Offering her sister a close-lipped smile, Beth nodded her head once before she picked up her own sandwich, choosing to leave the matter at that for now.

"So," she said before she took a bite of the bread, hoping to change the subject once and for all now. "Enough about me. How's everythin' with Glenn?"

.

.

.

In the end, Beth only ended up staying at Maggie's apartment for another hour and a half - or something around that timing, anyway - and although she was enjoying the visit (after all, it had been weeks since she had last seen her sister), when the older of the two announced that her partner would be returning home from work _"any minute now"_ , the blonde had decided that it was now time for her to leave.

It wasn't as though Beth didn't want to see Glenn or that she didn't get along with him - in fact, it was quite the opposite, really. Beth had always thought that Maggie had a questionable taste in men, but she thought to herself that this time, the brunette had really done well for herself; and she thought that the hard-working, self-proclaimed 'nerd' was a much better option than any of the jocks that Maggie had gone for back in her college days.

However, just because Beth liked Glenn didn't mean that she wanted him to see her whilst the scars on her face were still healing. The thing with Glenn was that despite the fact that he was a lovely, genuine guy, he had a habit of being awkward about near enough everything, and she knew that he wouldn't know where to even begin with her if he saw her like this. In retrospect, she supposed that she should have really warned her sister about her appearance; but despite being blunt and slightly insensitive, Beth thought that Maggie had dealt quite well with the situation, really.

Glenn, on the other hand, would crumble; and Beth honestly couldn't bare the idea of having to have that conversation with him. That could be saved for another time - a time after Maggie had already filled him in and given him advanced warning about her usually pristine features.

So, Beth chose to quickly say her goodbye's to her older sister, and she tried her very hardest not to sprint out of the front door as soon as Maggie gave up trying to keep her there for as long as she possibly could. After a good few minutes of back-and-forth between the two (and Maggie _insisting_ that she stay for dinner, even though she had mentioned earlier that she had plans to go out with Glenn for food), the brunette eventually gave up trying to convince her to stay.

As the two said their goodbye's, Maggie - usually a little cold and not one for showing affection - pulled her younger sister in for a tight hug before she could properly cross over the threshold of the front door, and after the initial shock of the contact wore off, Beth returned the embrace with a gentle smile.

"You'll call me if you need anythin', won't you?" Maggie asked as she squeezed her younger sibling close, and Beth squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she nodded her head, suddenly feeling a little bit more emotional than she really should have done over such a small gesture.

But it felt as though it had been so _long_ since anyone had held her in this way; since anyone had really cared for her enough to give her something like this, and the blonde blinked away the tears as she squeezed her sister back in return.

"Sure things, Mags," Beth breathed out, hoping that the emotion wasn't so obvious in her voice as she pulled away from her sister's hold.

"Well," the older of the two said, stepping backwards as Beth made her way out of the front door. "You know where I am if you need anythin', right? An' you'll come back over soon?"

Nodding her head, Beth hummed out an _mmhmm_ as she smiled over at her sibling, waving her hand a little as she stepped out towards her truck that was parked just a few feet away in the parking lot. "I'll see you later, Maggie," Beth said, and Maggie just nodded her head.

"Yeah," she agreed with a small smile. "I'll see you soon."

* * *

"Where the _fuck_ have you been?"

At the sound of the gravelly voice hissing from behind her, Beth jumped as the door to her truck slammed shut; and the blonde almost dropped her chain of keys from her hands onto the muddy floor out of surprise. Whirling around immediately, Beth's light blue eyes went over-dramatically wide as she scanned quickly over the familiar patch of land that was positioned directly at the front of the Greene farm.

In the daylight, you could see on and on for miles - could see the horses as they ran across the fields, could see the sheep and the cows as they grazed, could see the birds as they flew and could even make out some parts of town in the distance. The farm land seemed to spread on and on for miles; much further than the eye could see, but not all that far at the same time, and something about it made Beth feel both safe and secluded in the strangest of ways.

A part of society, a part of their _community,_ but distanced from it, too - isolated.

(Free.)

Now, though, in the pitch black darkness of the late evening, barely anything at all could be seen.

"Daryl," Beth breathed out instinctively - mostly because she knew his voice; she would know it anywhere in the world just like she knew it now, she just couldn't actually _see_ him - her voice shaky as her lips trembled from both the cool breeze of the night and as a part of the shock. And she wasn't scared of him, was _never_ scared of him, but the biker seemed to be completely ignorant to the fact that Beth was a naturally jumpy person and that she got frightened quite easily.

Really, given everything that had happened to her recently, Beth supposed that it could actually be viewed as him being insensitive towards her - sneaking up on her like this, making her jump and panic like this. Still, the blonde wasn't stupid; and she knew that Daryl wasn't trying to be malicious in any way or form, and that he would simply be irritated or angry about something or other -

\- ( _well_ , if his gruff welcoming wasn't enough to clue her in to that, then she wasn't sure what possibly could).

Finally, Beth's scrambling eyes managed to trail over the shadowy form of Daryl Dixon - the one which she must have already glanced over several times already but hadn't even noticed, and goodness, that's actually quite alarming and worrying to her now; that someone, _anyone_ really, could be lurking here in the shadows of the big old house, completely undetected - and she breathes out a huff of air at the realisation that it's actually him, not just her mind playing tricks on her. He isn't stood that far away from her, really, but he's still too far away and coated by darkness that she can't make out much about him at all other than the fact that he's half-leaning against something.

A bike, she thinks - _his_ bike. At least, that's what she's going to assume, anyway; and it isn't as though it's a ludicrous thought or a strange assumption, so it's one that she runs with, one that she takes in her stride. For a minute she blinks over at the form of him and is slightly bemused about the manner in which he will have possibly been able to get up the driveway to the farm on that noisy thing, about how on earth he would have been able to park it right outside of the farm house without her daddy even hearing a thing...

...and then her eyes dance over towards the big old house, taking in its dark windows and its lack of light - or any sign of life, for that matter - coming from within the rooms, and it clicks within just a matter of seconds why it is that her daddy won't have heard a damned thing when it comes to Daryl Dixon's motorcycle.

 _Oh._ Of course.

But really, where else would Hershel be if he wasn't at a bar?

"What are you _doin'_ here?" Beth stutters out in a voice that she hopes sounds confident and strong as she stares over at Daryl's form. He's hissed out an unfriendly greeting towards her and hasn't said a thing since, and the blonde shakes her head from side to side when he doesn't respond immediately to her confused - and genuinely innocent - question.

Snapping back into reality for a few seconds, Beth distracts herself from everything around her - from _him -_ as she presses down on the button that locks the doors to her truck, watching as the headlights flash three times as a result of it. As they do so, they light up the whole space around the property, and Beth's eyes dart right back over to Daryl so that she can properly make out the sight of him.

She only manages to get a glimpse of him for a matter of seconds, but it's enough time for Beth to pick up a few things about his appearance. He looks handsome (but when doesn't he, really) and is dressed in very dark colours. Not that it makes much of a change, really; but she notices that he's wearing a long-sleeve shirt as opposed to one with ripped off sleeves that expose the full lengths of his arms, and the leather vest - the one that she knows by now to have wings on the back of it - has been shrugged on over the top of it. From where she's standing, Beth swears that his hair looks shorter, too; but it might just be the angle that she's standing at, and the look that he's offering her as he stares directly back at her is enough to give her the chills.

Beth's body trembles slightly; goosebumps prickling over the her arms, the hairs on the back of her neck standing alert at the same time that her nipples harden against the fabric of her tee-shirt, but she - in her mind - blames the reaction on the cool air that surrounds them.

There's no breeze, though. Not tonight.

It is indeed his motorcycle that he's leaning against, but Beth doesn't see much of it before the headlights of the truck stop flashing brightly into the dark space of land, and once they are both consumed in darkness again, the blonde decides that it's time to make her way inside. She's asked him a question - and okay, he asked her one that she didn't answer, too, but this is her house that he's outside of, so she thinks she's in a better position to be asking questions than he is - and he hasn't responded, and she's not bored enough to stand here outside all night long.

(And alright - maybe she is. Maybe she would. And maybe she just wants to test him, to see if he'll follow, to see if he'll come along with her inside of the dark house, inside of the empty house.)

Deciding that she's not going to bother waiting around for another second longer, Beth tugs on the door-handle of the truck to check that it's definitely locked before she starts to walk over towards the entrance to the house. The blonde walks directly past Daryl and resists the urge to turn around and look at him as she starts to climb the porch steps to the house, but just as she reaches the final step, one of his big hands wraps around her much smaller wrist, effectively stilling her before she can continue on any further.

He's strong, yes; but - in her own way - so is she, and Beth thinks to herself - in fact, a part of her _knows,_ but she's not quite confident enough with her faith in him to actually admit it to herself - that if she attempted to continue on towards the front door of the house, then Daryl would give in and release his hold on her, that he would allow her to go without another word.

But she doesn't make any attempt to move - not even to breathe - so he doesn't either. And it might look to someone on the outside as though he has control - what, because he's holding her small wrist with his big hand - but it's not that way; not him in control at all, because it's _her_ who has the power here.

She could make him leave if she wanted him to, and she knows that he would go.

But she doesn't want him to go anywhere unless it's somewhere that she's heading, so she doesn't send him away.

So he stays.

"Daryl," Beth breathes out, her voice shaky again, and it's impossible for her to help the way in which her pulse races inside of her body when she says his name. It sounds lovely on her tongue and in her ears, and she wants to smile every time that she speaks to him.

Slowly, she turns around - still with his thick fingers wrapped around her naked wrist, and she briefly wonders whether he can feel how fast her blood is pumping through her veins right now. "You gonna tell me where you were?" Daryl asks her then, his voice soft and hard all at the same time - the question biting, almost accusatory - and Beth glares at him in the darkness.

Scoffing, the blonde pulls her arm back towards her defiantly, and just like she expected, the man releases his grip on her instantly. "What are you now, my _chaperone?_ " she bites back, the frown on her face growing more prominent with every passing second that she stares at the outline of him.

Within seconds, his hand is hovering over her skinny wrist again - pushing the boundaries of their relationship, of their power; testing _her_ \- and she whacks it away half-heartedly. When he doesn't say anything back to her retort, Beth heaves out a sigh before she attempts to compose herself, looking at the ground for a few seconds before she looks back up at him.

"I was at my sister's apartment," she says, and it's ridiculous, really - she _knows_ that she doesn't have to explain herself to him, but she knows that there's a reason he's all riled up like this, and she knows that the only way she's going to get anything out of him is by attempting to calm him down. Acting like a stubborn brat by not telling him something that, in the long run, doesn't really matter anyway is no doubt just going to bite her in the ass.

Daryl Dixon is a complicated creature, and she's still trying her best to understand him.

"I... I haven't spoken to her properly in a while. She needed to..."

Inhaling deeply, Beth fights a shiver when his fingers ghost over the flesh of her palm; and the blonde still doesn't know what he's doing here or what he wants with her, but she's quickly losing those questions - having them slip through her fingers whilst he distracts her with his hands.

"My face," Beth says, her eyes darting up to try and make out Daryl's expression, but even this close together it's difficult to see much of his face in the darkness. Swallowing, the blonde tries to keep the emotion out of her wavering voice as she continues on with her explanation. It's not as though he needs to know these details, either, but _god -_ she wants to tell him.

Wants so badly for him to know, for him to know everything, and she doesn't know why.

"Maggie needed to see my face."

Daryl doesn't bother to attempt to feign ignorance towards her, and instead of saying anything in response to her words, he chooses to stay silent on the matter. The only response he offers her is a very slight nod of the head, and then he's straightening himself up and inhaling an unsteady breath through his nose. Something about it manages to break the silence between them, and just as she's about to say something else to him, Beth finds herself instinctively stepping backwards as he moves forward to climb up the next step of the porch.

Beth continues to step backwards until she's basically stood directly in front of the front door to the farm house, and as she keeps her eyes locked onto the outline of his broad body, one of Beth's hands snakes behind her back and wraps around the doorknob. The shape of him seems so threatening in the black of the night, but he's not, though - never is, never will be.

She just knows it.

"Daryl," Beth tries again, her tongue creeping out of her mouth and licking at her lips that all of a sudden feel too dry, too chapped now that he's so close to hear. She can feel his hot breath upon her face now, and part of her wants to kiss him again - thinks that he might let her, thinks that he might actually enjoy it. "Why are you here?"

At her question, Daryl doesn't behave difficultly for a change. Instead, his head ducks low so that his chin is more than likely pressed to his chest, and he inhales yet another shaky breath before he speaks softly to her; his voice barely above a murmur, low and quiet.

"This guy," he says, shaking his head from side to side. "You won't 'member him. Doubt you even... Well. 'S name's T. T-Dog. An..." An impatient huff comes out from his lips, and Beth tries to remain patient as she stares up at Daryl's face, wishing that she could make out his features better - wishing that her daddy had listened to her all of those times that she had told him they needed better lighting around the porch, around the house. "Went out today - both of us, an' another guy. He - he got shot."

She doesn't quite know why, but she had been expecting that. "Is he okay?" she asks, her own voice barely above a whisper.

"Nah," Daryl says, and one of his hands come up to wipe at his face for a second. Beth is sure that he hasn't been crying, but it's difficult to tell anything in the darkness, so she doesn't press the issue - not yet. "Killed 'im. Straight through his head."

Now _that,_ she wasn't expecting; and Beth can't contain the gasp that escapes her mouth at the news. True, it isn't as though she knows this man, but she can quickly put two and two together and know that he was important to Daryl, which means that he was important to the club. One of his brothers, one of his men; not blood or kin, but family all the same, and she knows that that means he _matters._

The loss isn't one that she feels as powerfully as the man in front of her, but her heart brakes all the same. She doesn't know him, and yet she finds herself wondering so many things; things about his life and his family and his likes and his interests and his hobbies, and she hopes with all of her heart that his soul finds itself in a good place.

"I's worried," Daryl continues; snapping Beth out of her wandering thoughts, and she's confused for a brief moment before her eyes widen in realisation. "'Bout you," he says, eyes flickering in the darkness to meet with her own - and yes, his hair is definitely much shorter, she can tell now that he's closer to her - and Beth visibly swallows as she pushes some of her weight against the front door. "Wanted to make sure you were alright."

She figured as much, really. "Why?" she asks, tilting her head to one side as she stares up at him.

For such a long time after the word leaves her mouth, there is nothing but silence around the two of them; and at this point, Beth can't even feel disappointment when Daryl doesn't answer her question. By now, she knows not to really expect anything more from him than silence, anyway. Really, it was enough for him to say what he has to her so far this evening - more than enough, actually - and she imagines that it was a challenge for him to get those words out to her, a struggle to articulate them.

So instead of pushing and pressing the issue, instead of prodding and probing at him to give her some more insight into his mind and his emotions, Beth just pushes herself back against the front door even more; this time using enough force so that it clicks open, widening with a loud groan that fills the silence between them. There's no light inside of the house, so Daryl's face isn't illuminated (yet), but Beth continues to hover in the doorway to the house with him so close to her, staring up at his face with her big blue eyes blinking ever so slowly.

Once again, Beth licks her lips, and there is a part of her that hopes that Daryl can see her enough to notice that small movement.

"Do you wanna come inside?"

.

.

.

When she had initially invited Daryl Dixon into the farm house, Beth had certainly not been expecting to find herself rushing into the kitchen so quickly - especially not with him in tow.

And now, here she was; standing in front of where he was sat on one of the wooden chairs, a frown stuck on her pretty face as she inspects over him whilst he - half-heartedly - holds a bag of ice up against one of his cheeks.

 _"Ain't that bad,"_ he had told her as she fussed over him in the first few minutes of his entrance into the house, and in all fairness, he wasn't exactly lying about that or trying to play it down that much. It was hardly the worst injury that she had ever seen in the world - a black eye and a swollen jaw - especially considering one of his men had been shot in the head during the same brawl, but Beth had still been adamant that Daryl had needed to put something on it.

"Doesn't look too bad," she murmurs under her breath, and Daryl shoots her a frustrated, knowing look.

His hair is shorter than it was when she saw him last, not even three days ago, and it's taking her a little while to get used to. It's lighter, too; nowhere near as dark or messy, and even though it's different, he still looks good.

Looks better than good, really - even with his cropped hair and his black eye.

"Told you," he grumbles in response, and Beth doesn't even try to resist the urge to roll her eyes at his retort, nor does she try to conceal her actions. It's becoming very evident to her that Daryl Dixon does not like being fussed over, and part of her wants to remind him of the fact that he caused a huge blow-up with the town's sheriff because he didn't want him entering the same room that she had slept in whilst she was recovering from her own injuries, but in the end, she thinks better of it.

From where she is standing, the blonde swears to herself that she catches Daryl smirking at the sight of her rolling her eyes at his response, but she tries her best not to think too much about it - even if her heart begins to pick up speed inside of her chest.

"So," Beth says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear and glancing around the kitchen in an attempt to distract herself from thoughts of Daryl Dixon.

Because he's here, in her kitchen - in her house.

Where they are alone. Together.

 _Oh._

"Do you want anythin' to eat?"

* * *

 **The next chapter will pick up right where we left off, and I'm hoping to have it up within the next few days.**

 **As always, thank you for reading and please review!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Not very much to offer you in terms of plot with this chapter, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.**

 **As of the next chapter, we will be moving on with what the gang are going to do about The Governor and how they are going to get revenge for Beth's tortured and T-Dog's murder, which of course have all happened within one month (or there abouts) of each other. We will also get a better look at what's going on with Merle - expect a visit from Candy either next chapter or the chapter afterwards.**

* * *

"You sure tha' you're not hungry, Daryl?" Beth asked as she poured a generous amount of hot milk into two large mugs that she had already pulled out from one of the cupboards, her insides fighting heavily against the desperate way that the corner's of her mouth wanted to turn upwards just at the feel of her lips moving to make room for the sound of his name.

She had (surprisingly enough) found herself gliding around the kitchen - the one that was her mother's in a past life, the one that used to make her feel happy and now made her feel anything but - with ease, feeling more comfortable in this room now than she had ever done since the death of her mama. Despite the fact that the blonde hadn't actually set foot in this room for weeks - what, after staying in Daryl's apartment for as long as she had and then diverting straight over to Maggie's upon her departure from it - she found that she was moving with more grace than she had done in a long time.

Perhaps it had something to do with the way that she was moving - moving as feely and relaxed as she possibly could, throwing in an exaggerated sway to her hips with every step that she took. From where he sat behind her at the kitchen table, Beth could practically _feel_ his hungry eyes burning into the back of her as she used a teaspoon to heap some powder into both of the mugs and then stir it; and the thought of his stare didn't make her uncomfortable - if anything, it just spurred her on even more.

She wanted this man. Had wanted him for weeks, for months, even; and although they had been alone together on several occasions over the last two weeks - goodness, the two of them had even shared a bed several times now, and that was something that the blonde hadn't actually completely processed until right this second - circumstances had been extremely different. She had been weak and injured, her face scarred and her body marked with bruises of a variety of colours - yellows and greens and purples and blues - and _she had pissed in his bed._

Now, though - things were different. There were lots of things that had returned to normal. Beth could actually walk properly - and by herself - for a start. She could take herself to the bathroom if she needed to use it, she could get herself up and down the stairs without assistance - could even run her own bath if she wanted one. Her appearance was different, too, because her skin was much clearer now - her face was still scarred, yes, but the bruises had faded and the swelling had reduced near enough everywhere - and she looked something close to herself once again.

So things were different, and they were alone, and she wanted him - badly.

It might not be a good combination.

Continuing to move with ease, Beth picked up both of the mugs once she was satisfied that they had been thoroughly stirred - wrapping her fingers around their handles - and carried them over from the counter top towards the table where Daryl was sat at. She placed her own down first, settling it down in the empty space directly across from him, and then she leaned over the wooden table to place the scolding hot mug of hot cocoa directly in front of his nose.

A single nod of the head is all that Daryl offered to her in response to her question, and so Beth doesn't say anything to him, either. By now, she doesn't take his quiet, short responses too personally, and she doesn't take offence to them, either. Over the last few weeks, Beth likes to think to herself that she has grown to learn much more about Daryl Dixon than she thought that she possibly could, and one of the most obvious things to her about this man is that he isn't intentionally trying to be rude or ignorant towards her when he doesn't communicate with her on a verbal scale.

She's not stupid enough to believe that Daryl's gruff demeanour is always unintentional, though - it's just that, at this point in their relationship, Beth thinks that she would know if Daryl was being rude to her or short with her on purpose or to make some sort of statement.

Not for the first time, Beth thinks to herself that it's odd, how different they both are. There are some days when Beth is quiet and solemn and mostly silent, too - in fact, those days have become much more frequent in their occurrence since her mama passed away and since her two older siblings ran - but more often than not, Beth is happy to talk to whoever comes her way without much hesitation. The blonde isn't necessarily the most confident girl in town - in fact, she's actually quite the opposite - but she's still more than willing to try her best to be kind to everyone who happens to come across her path.

And it's not that she thinks that Daryl Dixon is necessarily unkind, either. More than anything, it's just that the last thin that Beth needs is trouble in her life, and the last thing that she wants to acquire is enemies - and, really, she supposes that the Vice President of the town's motorcycle gang (who definitely are _not_ just bike enthusiasts) wouldn't care much for either of those things.

Whether he necessarily intended to make a point of it or not, Beth won't ever be sure, but Daryl ignores the way in which the blonde is staring at him from where she is sat directly across from him, and instead he busies himself by lifting the drink to his lips. Both of Beth's hands are cupping her own mug of hot cocoa and through the pot, she can feel just how hot the liquid is; so she is naturally a little bit taken aback by the way in which the biker rushes to gulp down some of the drink.

She thinks to herself that it must surely be burning both his tongue and his throat as he swallows it down, but Daryl doesn't even so much as flinch as he drinks it.

When he's had as much as he cares for - which isn't all of it, because he wasn't gulping it down for _that_ long, but it's still an adequate amount - Daryl places the mug down on the wooden table perhaps a little _too_ aggressively. At the sound of the pot smacking aggressively against the surface of the table, Beth jolts a little in helpless surprise, her eyes widening dramatically and her upper body stiffening.

The thing is, Beth had always been a jumpy person, even before anything significantly _bad_ happened to her. She can recall the night that she first spoke to Daryl Dixon clear as day - the night when he practically sneaked up on her as she was lingering around in the parking lot of a bar, having just heaved her daddy into the passenger seat of her truck. She can remember the way in which she had felt so wary of the trees and the shadows, and she had jumped out of her skin even then when he had approached her.

But her physical reaction to things (particularly loud noises and sudden movements) have become increasingly worse since what happened that night - and the subsequent days that followed afterwards - with The Governor and his men. It's not as though it has reached the point where Beth is afraid to leave her own bedroom because of it, but it is at a stage where she's a little embarrassed - even if her behaviour is completely understandable, given what had happened to her.

And he noticed, of course. Her response was only subtle, really; but Daryl picked up on it all the same - she could tell by the way that his back stiffened, by the way that his eyes locked firmly onto her face, by the way that his lips pressed down into a straight line.

Daryl always seems to notice _everything_ , and goodness, that fact is so unnerving.

The grimace on his face was noticeable immediately, but within just half a second, Daryl had composed himself. An almost apologetic look crossed over his features next, and she thought to herself that it was genuine -

\- and then his words confirmed it.

After clearing his throat, Daryl averted his eyes so that he was staring into the mug of hot cocoa. "Sorry," he mumbled, barely even audible, and Beth just blinked over at him with an expressionless face, her hands still cupped around the hot mug in front of her. Almost instinctively, the blonde wanted to argue with his apology - to give him just a soft and simple _it's fine_ or a chuckled _don't be silly_ or an honest _it's not your fault -_ but after everything she had picked up and learned about him in the last few weeks, Beth knew better than to bother.

She thought to herself that he wouldn't appreciate her politeness, anyway - even if she was being truthful. He wouldn't want those words from her, wouldn't welcome them, and they would just cause him to be angry.

It meant that for a long few moments, it was quiet between them; Beth nibbling indecisively on her bottom lip as she debated over whether or not to say anything to him, watching as he stared down at his half-filled mug of hot liquid. Out of a want to busy herself with something, Beth slowly brought the cup up to her lips, blowing on the warm liquid for a few seconds before she drank down some of it, refusing to glance up as she poured the liquid down her throat to see whether Daryl was watching her or not.

For a reason that she couldn't quite explain, Beth suddenly found herself feeling so incredibly _small,_ and the thought of his beautiful eyes on her was too much for her to be able to handle.

"Ain't sure why I came here t'night," Daryl said, and the sound of him speaking out to her so unexpectedly had Beth almost choking on her drink. Thankfully, the blonde had a better hold on herself than that and managed to not make a spluttering mess of herself in front of him; but she was still caught off-guard by his words, and she still didn't know how to respond to them.

Surprisingly, he continued; even as Beth moved the mug away from her lips and placed it back down on the table in front of her, her light eyes trailing up to meet with his own much darker ones. "Jus' panicked, I guess," Daryl said, leaning backwards in his seat. "After that shit with T, I jus' didn't..." Clearing his throat once again, Daryl shook his head. "Didn't _think._ "

It's in that moment, listening to him speaking in the way that he does, that Beth thinks to herself that maybe - just maybe, and it's only an idea, not something concrete or definite or certain - Daryl thinks that she doesn't want him here, that he isn't welcome here; that she doesn't want his company or his presence, that she doesn't want _this -_ whatever this even is between the pair of them.

It may or may not be the case, but if it is, then he is so, _so_ wrong.

"It's alright," Beth said to him, her tone purposely gentle and filled with as much understanding as she could possibly offer towards him. Unable to help herself, Beth added a soft smile to her features, too; and almost as soon as she had spoken his eyes were flying up to meet with her own, and despite the fact that his head was still bowed down towards the mug, she could still make out most of his features as clear as anything.

And goodness, he was so beautiful. Beautiful in a way that she had never really thought a man to be - all strong jaw-lines and thin lips, intense eyes and stubbled face. It's in moments like these when his features remind her of the age gap between them, considering the fact that the men her age (they're not boys, not really, even though part of her still considers them to be - especially in comparison to someone like _him_ ) are mostly fresh-faced and wide-eyed and just so _young._

It's everything that she doesn't want. Maybe in a past life, maybe before he mama died and maybe before her siblings ran; but not now - now, she just wants him.

"I jus'..." Beth said, licking her lips in a manner that was almost nervous.

And sitting there across from him, Beth almost felt guilty, mostly because she knows that in a face-value kind of way, Daryl has already explained to her what led him here, what brought him to the farm. He has already informed her about the brutal murder of one of his closest men, of one of his _brothers;_ about the loss that he felt in that moment and the desperation, too - and okay, perhaps he hasn't delved into the whole topic _that_ emotionally, at least not yet, but Beth is learning to read him and read between the lines of him, too.

And he hasn't told her his real reason for coming here, for coming to her. Whilst Beth thinks that she can work it out - and she could, of course she could - she doesn't actually _want_ to. She wants to push her luck with him, wants to see how far he will delve into his emotions before he comes clean with her or before he snaps, wants to see where their boundaries lie.

So. Beth licks her lips and continues.

"You know you never answered my question before - you know that, right?" she said to him, her eyes hovering over his, some nervous laughter chuckling through her. "Why were you worried? About me?"

It might not seem very brave of her to ask him something like that, but it is - of course it is, especially considering the fact that he's volatile at the best of times, and one of his brothers had just been murdered right in front of his very eyes. It probably wasn't wise of her to push him in this way, really, and it probably wasn't entirely fair given the fact that he was probably riding a very turbulent wave of emotions; but she had wanted to push him this way so _badly_ , and that want hasn't necessarily lessened, wasn't like she could just take her words back once they had left her mouth.

It was then that Daryl looked up to her beneath his lashes, and once again Beth felt herself being pulled in towards him. Something about this man always seemed to draw her in, seemed to tug her closer, and it was unnerving and exciting all at the same time.

His gaze is filled with desire and heat, and despite the fact that it probably sounds foolish to anyone else, Beth finds his stare so intense that she wants to withdraw herself from it, that she wants to curl away and hide from it. She doesn't, of course - wouldn't ever, mostly because of the fact that it's _him_ and he's offering this to her, another part of himself that he's handing to her on a plate, and Beth would never refuse any of him.

She knows it well and true. It's not something that she's necessarily proud of, and it's not something she's entirely sure about in regards to its sensibility, but she knows it all the same.

A shrug of his upper body - small, but noticeable - is part of his response to her, and goodness, she actually feels _disappointed_ about that. For a fraction of a minute, it may as well have been her heart that had been tore open because of him, not just her cheek; and all she can think about - bitterly - is how _frustrating_ this man really is.

"Idunno," Daryl mumbled out - all one quick, jumbled word - as he casually shrugged his broad shoulders; and although Beth had always thought herself to be a patient enough person, in that moment, she wanted to do nothing more than scream out in irritation.

She didn't, of course. Not being the good girl that she was.

But my god, she wanted to.

The smile on her face contrasts the overwhelming dissatisfaction that has settled within the pit of her stomach at his half-hearted response, but she pushed on the best way that she knew how. Playfully, Beth tapped her boot against his own underneath the table, and she could immediately tell by the way in which his eyes widened before they truly focused back on only her again that the gesture had surprised him.

Maybe that was good. Maybe if she continued to catch him off guard, he would focus on composing himself so much so that he would forget to guard himself properly and would reveal his true intentions, true emotions, to her.

Well, perhaps that was her being a little bit too optimistic, but it was worth a try, regardless.

Beth supposed that it wouldn't kill her to have a little faith, anyway.

"Don't _idunno_ me," the blonde said, her smile widening as she spoke, and the toe of her boot tapped against the sole of his once more. "Why were you worried?"

Cheekiness. That's all that it is, really. She has been so incredibly pushy towards him tonight, and there is a small part of her that is genuinely surprised about it, because it isn't really like her at all to behave in such a bold, confident manner. Of course, Beth has always known that she possessed a curious nature about her - her parents always told her so, particularly when she was much younger. The blonde has always been interested in everything, has always wanted answers to questions that don't really concern her, has always wanted resolution where she could find it, even over the smallest of things, but especially the biggest -

\- but even Beth knows that tonight, she has pushed Daryl too far, too hard. It isn't as though it's like him to say much about anything at all anyway, never mind for him to actually reveal his _feelings_ for her, and it's difficult to feel anything but embarrassed and shocked when it actually dawns upon her just how forceful she has been with him.

But then there was that look again, and he's offered it to her; and it screams something in her mind - like little bells ringing in her mind, in the most positive way that they possibly could. And it's all heated and intense and absolutely blazing, lighting a fire within her core that she knows won't be put out, a strong thirst in her that only he would be able to quench - if it pleased him to do so, and knowing Daryl, it wouldn't.

Or, it more than likely _would;_ but he wouldn't allow it of himself. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

"You know," he said, his voice raspy and rough all of a sudden, and it would have practically been impossible for her breath not to have been caught in her throat at his words.

Because yes, she did know. Of course she knew.

How could she not?

And _love_ is a very strong word - one that she won't ever over-use, one that she has always refused to discredit - so it is easy and almost instinctive for Beth to accept the fact that he does not love her in the same way in which she does not love him.

She cares for him though, cares for him an extreme amount; and in that moment, she truly realised just how much that he cares for her, too.

Maybe much more than she realised before.

"Oh."

* * *

How on earth the pair of them end up in the upstairs bathroom is completely and utterly beyond Beth's comprehension. In the back of her mind, the blonde considers the thought that perhaps it was down to Daryl getting the doors confused and dragging them into the wrong room; and, in all fairness, it's not as though that would be an impossible idea to entertain. He might have visited the farmhouse before, but he's never been upstairs - as far as she's aware, that is - and combined with the fact that it's very dark inside her home, it's more than understandable that he might have gotten a little bit lost.

They both went with it, anyway; and - as far as Beth could tell - it was working out just fine.

Daryl's lips had been locked onto hers for a considerable amount of time now, although it seemed as though it was her that was leading on with the advances. At some point, she had begun to attack at his leather vest with her fingers, and he assisted her in shrugging the garment down from his shoulders. Carelessly, Daryl allowed it to fall to the floor; neither of them paying attention to where it landed, neither of them caring about anything else but their mouths on one another's.

She might have been leading the way with her mouth - nipping and licking and sucking at his lips, beckoning him into her mouth with her tongue and hoping with all her might that he didn't stop whatever it was that he was doing, because everything that he did felt so _good._

In her dreams, Daryl has always been _rough._ It has undoubtedly been what Beth has wanted, and the blonde is anything but disappointed as he practically throws her onto the sink (he had near enough carried her up the stairs, and once they reached the top and moved towards the bathroom he had pulled her completely up in his arms so that her legs were wrapped around his waist and her ankles were tight around his thighs) her head tosses backwards and hits the mirror behind her with a soft _whack._

As soon as the sound of her head hitting the mirror echoes between them - and _god,_ it's not even that loud, but of course he heard it anyway - Daryl is pulling his body away from hers, and there is no doubt in her mind that it is so that he can check that she is alright; to make sure that she didn't hit her head too hard against the glass, perhaps even to apologise to her for being a bit too harsh, a bit too rough.

Within seconds of him moving his body back from her own, a loud, involuntary whine escapes from Beth's lips; the sound dragging out and bouncing against the walls between them. It vibrates within her throat as she throws her head back forwards so that she can look at Daryl in the eyes once again, and it is loud enough to drown out the small sound of her hitting her head.

The whine came out of her mouth as a result of the loss of contact between them, and it serves a purpose of distracting him enough – he's panting as he looks at her, bewildered and surprised and so unsure - to catch him off guard.

Her slender legs are still wrapped very tightly around Daryl's middle, and Beth uses that to her advantage. With as must force as she can possibly muster in her thighs and calves (which are anything but strong, really) she pulls the biker back towards her body again, and he practically stumbles into her once again.

Now that he has propped her against the sink, she's at a much better height all round for access to him; and the hard length of him can now rub freely against the seam of her jeans at precisely the right angle send a jolt of pleasure soaring throughout her body.

That, of course, is exactly what happens when he pushes up firmly against her; and she imagines that the way in which he rocks his hips against hers is all based upon instinct and was not an intentional action, especially if the stunned expression on his face is anything to go by.

But she _likes it –_ goodness, she likes it so, so much. And it's fucked up – of course it is, no doubt about it. Because Beth still remembers what happened to her just a few weeks before at the hands of men – men who are so similar to him, really, in terms of strength and size and build. Beth knows what their forceful actions have done to her head, what their aggressive touch has done to her body; knows how their unwanted behaviour has made her more cautious of a person now, less trusting and more paranoid.

And with him, it's all forgotten.

Which might be bad, because it leaves her vulnerable, leaves her open and exposed.

But it also might be good, because she's never felt so free before.

It's different anyway, because this is _Daryl,_ not somebody else; and his touch and his closeness is wanted, even possibly needed, and he is not them.

He might not be all good, but he certainly isn't all bad, and that overrides everything else.

Without warning, Beth's hands are wandering up his body until her pale arms snake around the back of his neck, and her nimble fingers swiftly grip into his freshly cut hair. Beth holds on to it as tightly as she can – which must be painful, really, but he doesn't give her any sign that he is at all uncomfortable – and she yanks him closer towards her so that their mouths can meet again.

Daryl doesn't wait to kiss her back, and as she writhes against him – grinding herself into him as fast and as hard and with as much pressure as she can – Beth moans loudly into his mouth, and for a split second, she is taken back to that night in the back of the bar. What he is doing and what she is feeling is the same as that night, only it's not, because everything is so much more _extreme_.

(In the best way possible, of course.)

As Daryl touches her, his movements are still wary, still cautious. His large hands are holding on to her hips and they squeeze at her experimentally over her tank top, and Beth responds as positively as she can by grinding herself into him with an impossible amount of pressure, whimpering into their kiss as the friction courses through her. By now, her underwear is practically _soaked,_ and she's sliding her clit against Daryl's denim-clad cock and the seam of her own jeans with ease.

This need for him that she has feels so incredibly _raw_ , but Daryl is still so careful with her – despite the fact that she wants him hard and fast and _rough_ , always rough – and Beth knows in her heart that he is still trying to protect her.

Which is partially frustrating, because _she is still here._ She's breathing, she's alive, and she's not just another dead girl – not just another victim. There is blood still pumping through her veins and there is air still in her lungs and she wants him to _see_ it, but she knows that he can't, so she settles with the idea that maybe he can feel it instead.

Beth's movements are hurried and swift as she removes one of her hands from where it had been tangled in his hair, and she wraps her fingers around one of his wrists – his hands are still holding on to her hips in a manner that is almost bruising – and she pulls it up to her breast without any hesitation.

At first, her intention had been something close to sweet, perhaps even innocent. Like something from a gentle love story; and she had wanted him to feel that she was really there with him, that she was alive and that she was strong and that her heart was still beating, that it was almost _racing_ and it was because of him.

Beth isn't wearing a bra, and now Daryl's hand is on her breast – completely still because she has shocked him, she knows she has, even without opening her half-closed lids - but his hand is still there regardless, and this feels so much better than what she originally had in mind, anyway.

A moan escapes her lips at the same time that her eyelids flutter open, and the look on his face is something that she can only describe as amazement. Sometimes, it seems as though this man might actually _worship_ her, which is a little unsettling - she's not perfect, not without flaws, and she wants him to see _her;_ the real her, not just some idea of her - but there is lust in his deep blue eyes, plain and simple, and Beth knows that he wants the same thing that she does.

Whether or not he will allow himself the pleasure is the question - and the problem.

In a way that is almost experimental - curious, unpractised and uncertain and eager all at the same time - Daryl kneads at her breast through the material of her tank top, and in an attempt to encourage his ministrations, Beth lets out a soft, blissful sigh. It's not at all congruent of her because all that she wants to do is scream; scream out in a mixture of both pleasure and frustration, cry out in desire, grab him by his hair and press him further against her and then further inside of her until she's full; full of _him -_

Calloused hands paw at her breast and thick, trembling fingers pinch lightly at her nipple; and Beth nearly comes from where she is propped up against the sink when Daryl's tongue enters her mouth again.

After the initial shock of Daryl igniting their kiss fades away, Beth finds herself naturally returning it with as much enthusiasm as she can possibly muster; and now, it's _her_ rocking herself up and up and up against _him_ as one of her hands snakes up his chest to eventually join the other in his hair. The urge to tug on it is almost overwhelming, but for now, Beth resists; instead focusing on the pleasure that she feels rushing through her body as she grinds against him.

It's not sensible, really; considering the fact that they are in the middle of the bathroom, and her daddy could decide that he wants to return home from the bar any minute (an unlikely scenario, but a scenario all the same, and Beth has absolutely no idea what Hershel Greene would do - sober or drunk - if he just so happened to stumble across his youngest, most innocent daughter dry humping the Vice President of the town's biker gang.)

Well. It's not something that she wants to think about right now.

Daryl's name slips from her lips as he rubs impossibly harder against her, and he's panting into her mouth as he tears his hand away from her breast and allows it to travel south. Now both of his hands are resting on her thighs and he (not very gently at all, but gentle isn't what she wants right now; might not ever be what she wants) spreads her legs even further apart, allowing him better access to her core. Beth locks her ankles behind his thighs in an attempt to keep herself propped up against him, and then Daryl is gripping at her hips with more force than she has ever felt him use as he slams into her over and over again, whimpers escaping from her mouth as he swears and grunts into hers.

 _Fuck,_ he says, and he repeats it over and over again - sometimes throwing her name in, just for the fun of it. The sound of her name coming out of his mouth does the worst things to her under normal circumstances, but now - now, Beth is practically seeing stars behind her tightly closed lids, and his name continues to fall from her lips like a mantra - _Daryl, Daryl, oh my_ god, _Daryl_ \- and when his body stiffens against her and his teeth dig into her bottom lip and his fingers press against her hips so harshly that she almost cries out in pain, Beth knows that he has found his release.

Hers is yet to come, but she rides the waves with him anyway; rubs at the back of his scalp with her fingers, allows him to bite her plump bottom lip until she can taste the blood from it, keeps her legs locked tightly around him whilst he inadvertently bucks himself into her, spasms of pleasure running through his strong body. His mouth rips away from hers suddenly - and almost a little harshly - and then his head falls to rest snugly against her shoulder, his breathing erratic as his hot breath puffs out against her neck.

She's not finished, though - she's close, but not quite there, and her clit is throbbing almost painfully against the seam of her jeans, crying out for relief against her soaked panties. Beth wants to give him a minute to come to but her body seems to have other ideas entirely, and before she can even think about what she's doing or prevent herself from doing it, the blonde is grabbing at his hand and shoving it between her legs, pressing at her core through the denim.

Just the pressure from his hand is probably enough to make her cum if she rocked against it, but Daryl doesn't give her the chance to do that before he begins to press it into her himself, and Beth cries out in surprise and pleasure as he rubs his hand back and forth. It's not as though she's soaked herself through to the jeans - the denim is thick, and she highly doubts that her cum alone could drench through it, even at this rate - but through them, her panties are sliding against her clit so effortlessly that she knows that Daryl must realise just how wet she is.

He's still panting and so he doesn't kiss her again, but the biker does tilt his head upwards ever so slightly so that he can nip at the bottom of her ear, and Beth's whole body shudders and her hips buck forward as he presses his teeth into the flesh of her ear and pulls and sucks before releasing her. Despite the fact that he's still coming down from his own orgasm - and oh my _god,_ it just dawns upon her that Daryl Dixon just _came in his pants in her bathroom_ \- Daryl seems to be fuelled by determination as he presses his hand firmer against her, and he's rubbing her up and down so quickly that she might just -

\- might just _what,_ she'll never be sure, because then Daryl's teeth find purchase at the very top of her earlobe, and this slight change allows his warm breath to brush into her ear, and that - combined with the feel of him using his hand against the seam of her jeans, rubbing at her swollen, dripping clit - is what it takes to push Beth over the edge. If she thought that she was tugging at his hair a little too harshly before then she was incredibly mistaken, for as she rides the waves of her own orgasm, she finds herself practically tearing some of the strands from her scalp as a result of the force that she uses against them, and the cry that leaves her lips is so foreign to even her own ears.

In all of her life, finding her release has never felt like this before.

All that she can do is collapse against him in a similar way that he did just a few minutes before - her head against his shoulder, her hands loosening their grip from his hair, and her breathing is ragged; hitching and dropping as she pants loudly against him, her legs and her arms shaking quite violently as she rests against him.

Daryl doesn't bother to pull his hand away from where it is trapped between her thighs, and for that, Beth is glad - she thinks that the movement would disturb her, that it would cause her to cry out and to shudder and to whimper from the loss of it all at once. With his free hand, Daryl begins to run his fingers through the strands of her blonde hair, and even though she can't see him - can't because her head is still buried in the crook of his neck and her eyes are practically glued shut - Beth knows that he's looking at his reflection in the mirror.

Looking at _them._

It's difficult to form any coherent thought at all whilst she's mellowed out as a result of her intense orgasm, but Beth just hopes that he likes what he sees.

* * *

 **See - told you it would have been too long to have had it all as one chapter!**

 **As always, thank you for reading and please review :)**


	16. Chapter 16

**I'm trying to push on a bit with some more plot as well as with the Bethyl bonding in this chapter. Please do keep in mind that this is a slow burn story, and although there's a lot of tension between these two, it's not necessarily going to be a case of them jumping into bed with one another. Also, I've planned out the next couple of chapters for this story, and I can say that without a doubt it's going to be longer than I originally intended. I think that we might be halfway there, if not a little bit under halfway, as there's still a lot of plot to explore and also a lot more Bethyl.**

 **I figured that it was about time that Beth got to grip with the more negative emotions that she's feeling in this chapter. I've said a few times now that in this fic, Beth is much more emotionally mature than Daryl is, and a part of being emotionally mature is her being able to deal with both good and bad things that she's feeling. I think it's about time that she had a good cry about everything in her life - don't you?**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

The breakdown happens when she is least expecting it.

Perhaps that makes the whole thing much worse.

In all honesty, it had been a pretty good day for her, too. After returning to her lectures just over a week ago - greeted by both her fellow students and her tutors with bright smiles and warm embraces; all of them more than pleasant and warm towards her despite the fact that she had been absent from classes for almost three weeks, all of them checking to make sure that she was doing well and that she had fully recovered from her 'accident' (and _god,_ did they all really buy that story, did they all really believe that, and if they did, then _how?)_ \- Beth was feeling much more settled within herself.

As far as the blonde was concerned, being back into a set routine was a good thing, and there was no harm in having a tight schedule and throwing herself back into the world of her studies. For quite a few weeks, the world of gangs and bikers and criminals had surrounded her - after all, it had been _Daryl Dixon's_ apartment that she had found rest inside of - and now, it just felt good to almost be back to normal though.

Beth had a feeling that normal wouldn't last for very long, though - not with _him_ in her life.

Positive things were on the horizon, though; especially with summer break approaching, although the thought of having a three month break from her training was actually quite terrifying. All that was left now was a matter of weeks - weeks that entailed submitting four assignments (all five thousand words) and three exams (two practical assessments and one written) - and the last thing that Beth wanted to do was to fall at the last hurdle. So long as she passed this year, then she would begin the fourth and final year of her degree in October; and that year would mostly entail her being out on placement, working in actual veterinary clinics as opposed to being sat in a lecture theatre.

Not only was Beth feeling good about her studies now, but Beth was also feeling good about her family life. Although things with her father were ever anything but easy - after spending over one year living with an alcoholic, she knew that it would be impossible for anything with him to ever be simple again - everything seemed to be very quiet with him at the minute, and that was better than nothing. The last thing that she needed right now was more drama from his side.

Shawn had also been in touch with her for what had felt like - and could easily well have been - the first time in months. The phone call from her older brother had been unexpected, to say the least; and Beth had been pleasantly surprised to hear that he was currently planning on visiting his home town sometime within the next few weeks. Shawn had spent a short while talking fondly about a woman whom he had been seeing for a couple of months - _Dawn,_ he had said that she was called - and he even mentioned the possibility of bringing her along with him when he visited, too.

That news had been another surprising piece from her older brother. Whilst Maggie and Shawn had both had their fair share of partner's over the years when Beth had been much younger and they had all lived together in the farmhouse, the two had been very, very different when it came to their dating strategies. Whilst Maggie had been more than happy to constantly flaunt her boyfriend's to all of her friends and to her family (despite the fact that her daddy had always been very disapproving, and despite the fact that the relationships never did last all that long), Shawn had always been much more reluctant to introduce any of his girlfriends to the family.

Of course, there had been a few names that Beth had been filled in on; but it would have been impossibly for her not to have known of some of the girls whom her brother was allegedly meeting with in the back seat of her daddy's old truck when they lived in such a tiny town. It was one of the last things that Beth had actually wanted to hear about, but nobody seemed to really believe her on that; and besides - the gossip had always served a purpose of being excellent blackmailing material, whether it was true or not.

Given his usual reluctance, Beth was surprised to hear that her older brother was talking about actually bringing a girl along with him to town - a cop, he'd mentioned, and that had been another thing that she wouldn't have been able to guess. _It's about time,_ Annette Greene's voice said clear as day within her mind, and Beth could picture her mother's knowing smile at the thought of it all.

Nothing concerning Hershel's current condition was mentioned during their talk over the phone - just a quick _how's dad?_ and a nonchalant _I haven't spoken to him in a while_ and then that was that. Beth had naturally responded to Shawn the same way that she responded to everyone else who ever asked any questions regarding his well-being: by informing him (sometimes a little bit defensively, although she never actually intended to come across that way) that their daddy was doing absolutely fine, especially considering the fact that he was still very much grieving the loss of her mama.

It wasn't as though Beth actually wanted to lie to her brother, but she had just been so pleased to actually hear from him - as in for him to have picked up his phone, to have gone out of her way to call her instead of just leaving it for her to do - and she didn't want to spend the last few minutes of their conversation going into details about Hershel's welfare and his poor coping strategies. At the end of the day, Shawn was anything but stupid and far from gullible; and, as much as she wished that he really didn't know what was going on, Beth knew in her heart that Shawn already knew the answer to his own question before he even bothered to ask it.

Beth knew that the absolutely knew it - knew it because he wasn't ever that easily convinced about anything, knew it because he'd always had an irritating habit of being able to see directly through her, knew it because at the end of the day, Hershel was his father, too - and yet Shawn happily accepted her blatant lie just as easily as Maggie always did.

 _"So I'll let you know the dates that I'll be comin' up once I know for sure,_ " Shawn had said to her, and Beth had been unable to hide the smile in her voice when she told him that was fine and that she better get going to class. After a quick goodbye, the blonde had hung up the phone; a pleasant feeling swelling in her chest as she gathered up her books together and set off out of the door to go to college.

It was easy not to think of Daryl whenever she was busy. When Beth was in class, she didn't have much of a choice but to concentrate on what she was doing - especially now that she was preparing for her upcoming assessments - and even at home, she was pushing herself extra hard to make sure that she got a lot of her work done. Her assignments weren't going to write themselves, and although her work was far from fun, it kept her distracted.

At least to a point, anyway.

The dreams of Daryl never did really go away, though; and for a short while, Beth had naively thought to herself that maybe - just maybe - after their steamy make out session just a few days before that the desire that she felt for this man would have cooled down at least some. However, it had been almost four days since they had last seen each other; almost ninety six hours since he head made her throb and pulse as he ground himself into her and made her come in her jeans against the bathroom sink, and the want that she felt for him was something that was quickly consuming her.

It was something that she couldn't hide from or avoid, and despite the fact that she felt frustrated at the lack of control she had over this situation - _their_ situation - Beth was still content with the way in which things were going between the pair of them.

That burning ache for him never really did disappear though, and as soon as she collapsed into her bed after finishing off one of her four assignments, Beth's mind wandered immediately to him. A groan almost escaped her lips when she thought of just his name because, in all honesty, Beth was absolutely exhausted, and all that she had wanted to do was sleep; but now it was clear to her that her body wanted other things, and she had suddenly lost all thought of resting for a while.

So, she came.

Came with her fingers and her mind and nothing more, despite the fact that she had actually been a little bit worried that after what he had done to her - after how _good_ he had made her feel whilst only touching her over her clothes - she wouldn't be able to feel anything close to that amount of pleasure again: at least, not with her own hand, anyway.

But her imagination was a lovely thing and it spurred her on as she rubbed wet circles over her stiff clit; memories assisting her - of Daryl's big hands wandering on her body, gripping at her tiny waist and rubbing at the seam of her jeans so it pushed against her clit; of his lips and his teeth against her own as denim rubbed against demin - and then her mind took over. Thoughts of how his hands would feel if they were wrapped up in her hair, yanking her neck backwards, of how it would feel if his thick cock slipped into her folds and pounded into her with abandon -

And when her clit spasmed and she gushed out onto her bed sheets, all that fell from her tongue was a sharp cry and then his name - _daryldaryldaryl -_ tumbled out of her mouth at high speed.

It felt wonderful, of course; and Beth couldn't help but wonder about how it would feel when she finally had him - whether it would feel this good or whether it would feel better, and goodness, what if it actually didn't feel anywhere near as good as it did in her mind?

Her chest heaved up and down as Beth sucked in her breaths, slowly calming down from her high; and once her legs had stopped trembling and her clit had stopped twitching and her pussy had stopped leaking onto the pale blue bed sheet, Beth finally realised just how _low_ she actually felt.

At first, the thought crept up on her slowly, but it took over her at sudden speed - hitting her right in the face like a freight train - and then it dawned upon her that maybe nothing was as good as it had seemed all day. Initially, the doubt crept in regarding Daryl; because it had been four days since they had last seen or spoken to one another, and was that _normal?_ Now that it crossed her mind, Beth didn't think that it was, really; and very naturally, the blonde wanted to ask Amy, but a deep part of her already knew that her best friend wouldn't think that it was normal, either.

And then that doubt turned back to Shawn, and she thought of how sad it was that her siblings - as well as her father, but that was a different matter entirely - had accepted all of her lies with such ease; lies about what had happened to her a few weeks before and her state of mind since, lies about how her father was doing, and then Beth thought that perhaps she was accepting their lies too easily, too - lies about Shawn coming to visit and Maggie meeting her for lunch more regularly.

The thoughts took over her before she could stop them, the manner of it something similar to the way in which the desire that she felt for Daryl rushed over her all at once - only this felt much, much worse, and whilst minutes before she had felt so happy and so pleasant and so free, now she just felt absolutely miserable. Not only were things with Daryl anything but steady - and _god,_ was she turning into one of _those girls_ who just did whatever with a guy because they wanted to and then didn't think anything of it until afterwards, was she turning into someone who she never thought that she would be, someone who didn't fit the role of a _good girl_ at all? - but her own father was also honestly losing his mind, and to top it all off, she had these _awful_ scars on her face after being _abused_ not all that long ago and -

And she snapped, her restraint and control breaking down as she started to sob. Her small frame was once again trembling in her bed, but for a completely different reason than it had been before, and no coherent thought could be made by Beth for some time as she allowed the tears to flow down her cheeks and the ache in her chest to stretch out.

She was happy, but she wasn't; and all that she wanted was to feel better than this. As she sobbed up at the ceiling, it dawned upon Beth just how much she missed her mama - someone whom she had always been close to; a person who would have been here to help her, who would have seen straight through her lies and would have been there for her through the truth.

More than anything, Beth just wanted her family back, but her mama was dead and her brother had moved to the city and her sister was living her life with her new boyfriend whilst Hershel tried to drink himself to death. And all the while, Beth had found herself a boy - more of a man, really, and whom she suspected to be a _criminal,_ too - who was messing with her head something terrible.

Yes, this life was definitely not what she had signed up for; and all that Beth could do about it was cry.

* * *

Six days came and went by quickly, and by the time that it had been well over a week since the last time that Beth had seen or heard from Daryl, she finally gave up and accepted the fact that if she wanted to see him again - or at least any time soon, for want of not being a little bit too over-dramatic - then it was more than likely going to have to be her who made the first move towards him. It was a difficult thing for Beth to accept, especially considering the fact that she had always been a very _traditional_ girl; but the blonde reminded herself that nothing about this situation was traditional in the slightest, and there was no point in her attempting to pretend that it ever would be.

There was still a lot that she had to learn about Daryl Dixon, too; but one thing that she was absolutely certain of when it came down to him was that he was completely and utterly clueless when it came down to the matter of _her._ It was bizarre to think that someone like Daryl - the Vice President of a biker gang, a grown man for goodness sakes - would ever be intimidated by her presence, but he always seemed so skittish around her in a way that was both confusing and sweet all at the same time, and Beth just knew how much it would take for him to come to her.

So far, Beth had established that Daryl was quite protective over her, but that seemed to mean that unless he thought that she was in some kind of danger or somehow at risk - which, obviously, she didn't desire whatsoever - then he wouldn't be making the first move towards her.

Trying her best not to over-think the situation too much - because making the effort towards anyone ever, not even just Daryl, was a pretty big move for Beth; considering the fact that she had never been the type of person who threw themselves into others lives - she drove into the parking lot of Dixon's Garage and reversed into the first empty bay that she saw. In an attempt to look as casual as possibly, Beth didn't even glance at the actual garage itself, so it was only once she had parked up and grabbed her handbag from where it had been resting on the passenger seat of the truck that Beth actually realised that nobody seemed to be around.

Parked up directly in front of the garage was a line of motorcycles - six or seven of them, give or take - but apart from those, there wasn't another vehicle in sight in the whole of the lot, which was reasonably spacious. For a good couple of seconds, Beth remained completely still as she blinked out of the windscreen over towards the dark - and very obviously empty - garage, debating over in her mind whether or not she should go and just try to see if there was anyone around (because those bikes were parked there for a reason, and the curious side of her wanted to know why).

In the end, the blonde decided that at least if she gave finding Daryl a shot, then she wouldn't feel bad about chickening out later on.

With a huff, Beth hopped out of the truck and slammed the door to it shut behind her, making sure that it was locked before she proceeded to approach the garage. All of the bays were completely empty - not just from people, but also from cars, and she didn't really know whether or not that was normal considering the fact that she had only ever been here once before - so Beth figured that it would more than likely be best if she looked somewhere else for some signs of life. Without thinking too much about it, she walked up towards the reception area that she had waited inside of with her sister - an event that felt as though it could have easily taken place years ago as opposed to just weeks and months - and peeked in the glass, squinting her eyes in an attempt to see better.

As far as she could tell, there was definitely a light source somewhere inside the building - not necessarily placed in the actual waiting area as such, but possibly in an office or a room located further down the deceptively large building - and before Beth could even properly think over her options, she raised her fist and rapped against the glass several times. It was only after she had knocked against the transparent door that Beth actually realised what she had done, and she clumsily allowed her arm to fall back to her side, staring down at her hands with a dumbfound expression.

Still a little taken aback by her actions, Beth didn't pay attention to the sound of approaching footsteps, and the blonde jumped backwards slightly when the door to the garage was pulled open inwardly. Blinking quickly, Beth breathed out a sigh of relief and offered the woman before her a small smile.

"Carol," she said, her heart racing inside of her chest from the slight panic. "Hi."

.

.

.

"How do you take your coffee, Beth?" Carol asked, not looking over her shoulder at the blonde as she made up their drinks.

"Black," Beth responded as she walked slowly around the reasonably sized office, not bothering to hide her curiosity or to be discreet in her exploration. Her wide blue eyes didn't miss a thing - from the framed pictures on the wall (Beth assumed that the men who were photographed were all members of the club; and placed above their three lines of photographs was a framed picture of Daryl, and then placed above that was a framed photo of Merle) to the overflowing stack of paperwork that was placed on top of the desk, Beth took all of it in.

Once they were freshly made, Carol walked over from the sink and sat herself back down at the desk with both of their coffees placed down on the wooden surface of it. Although she didn't instruct her to do so, Beth found herself naturally floating towards the desk and then sitting across from the older woman at it, murmuring a _thanks_ as she raised the warm mug of coffee to her lips.

It was something that Beth struggled to really articulate, but there was a sort of aura about Carol that made Beth feel relaxed and at peace. There happened to be something almost maternal about the older woman that made her whole presence feel warm and welcoming; and despite the fact that she didn't always look as though she was feeling very friendly, the blonde always found Carol easy enough to be around and also easy enough to talk to.

And Beth didn't know Carol very well, but she had gathered several weeks ago that this woman was blunt, to say the least, and today was clearly no exception. "Why are you here?" Carol asked her after taking a long sip of her own coffee, her bright blue eyes narrowed slightly in Beth's direction. Before she could answer Carol's question, though, the woman was speaking again. "If it's Daryl that you're after, he's not here right now."

That much, Beth had gathered. It didn't seemed as though anyone was here except for Carol. "Yeah," Beth said as she cupped the mug of coffee in her hands, not looking away from the older woman as she spoke. "It was Daryl I was looking for, actually."

Nodding, Carol's shoulders relaxed and she sank further back into her chair, seeming to be happy with Beth's answer. The blonde wasn't quite sure what else Carol had been expecting her to say - it wasn't very likely that she was going to come to the garage to see anyone else, after all - but she brushed that aside and swallowed down some more of her drink.

"They're in a meeting," Carol explained, and Beth cocked her brow before she could even stop herself.

"They?" she asked, not wanting to assume anything at this point. After all, it wasn't as though she necessarily knew Daryl very well at all, so she wasn't going to pretend as though she knew - or even really understood - his schedule at this point.

Nodding, Carol shuffled in her seat. "The club," she said, reaching out towards her mug once again. "They're meetin' in the clubhouse. It's only next door, but I couldn't guess for you how long they're going to be in there."

"Oh," Beth breathed as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, nibbling on her bottom lip as she mulled it all over in her mind. "It doesn't matter anyway. I - it wasn't _important_ or anythin'. Why I came."

"Just wanted to see him?" Carol asked with a hint of a smile on her lips, and there was something very close to teasing in her tone. The older woman had never struck Beth as being a playful person - in fact, despite the fact that she was kind and easy to talk to, she never seemed to be anything but serious - and all that the blonde found she could do was blink blankly in surprise across the desk at her. "I'd tell him you were here, but I think the meeting's... Pretty important. It's about Candy."

Beth frowned at the unfamiliar name. "Candy?" she repeated, not liking the way that it sounded on her tongue very much.

The eye-roll that Carol offered her just confused Beth even further, and although it was obvious that the grey-haired woman was a little bit frustrated by her response, it was also clear that the frustration wasn't aimed towards her - which Beth took to be a positive thing.

"Does he not tell you _anything_?"

Beth simply shook her head from side to side, and a small huff puffed out of Carol's mouth.

Before Beth could even blink, Carol was leaning across the desk and grasping at her almost empty mug of coffee, wrapping her slim fingers around the handle of it and then doing the same with her own mug. "We're gonna need some more coffee," the older woman said, and all that Beth could do was blink up at her as Carol pushed her chair backwards and stood up.

* * *

The sound of light knocking against the window of her truck disturbed Beth from her slumber, and she suddenly awoke with a jump; her light blue eyes darting open into the enclosed space around her as her body struggled to come to full consciousness. It took the blonde a few seconds to properly get hold of her bearings and to realise where she was, and she shook her head in an attempt to clear her fuzzy, dream-filled mind before she faced the window, and the sight of Daryl - stood with a confused expression on his face - instantly helped her to relax.

Still feeling slightly sleepy and not quite awake, Beth slowly rolled down the window so that she could speak to him; and she put on her best pretty smile as she scooted her body a little bit closer towards the drivers side door. Before Beth could even attempt to open her mouth and greet the biker, he was speaking; sounding both amused and curious as his lips twitched upwards.

"The hell are you _doin'_ here, girl?" Daryl asked, his words lacking any real bite about them.

Still feeling sleepy, Beth stretched her arms out in front of her and practically purred as the muscles in her back and her arms came back to life. When she settled herself back against the drivers seat, Beth cleared her throat - trying to ignore the nasty taste in her mouth that had occurred as a result of her nap - and answered his question.

"I was waitin'," she said simply, blinking up almost innocently at him as Daryl frowned down at her. "For you."

"Yeah," Daryl said, chuckling and shaking his head as he avoided eye contact with her and chose instead to look around the empty parking lot of the garage. "I can see that."

For a few seconds, Beth followed his gaze, noticing the fact that there was now only one motorcycle parked up in the lot as opposed to a whole row of them. How she had managed to sleep through them all setting off - considering the fact that their engines were all stupidly loud - was beyond her, but Beth supposed that she had just taken in a lot of information from Carol regarding the club, and not all of it was pleasant.

"Sorry," Beth started, suddenly feeling a little sheepish. Now that she thought about it, maybe waiting around for Daryl in front of the garage where all of the fellow members of his club could see her wasn't the best idea she had ever had. "I didn't mean to -"

Before she could continue with her clumsy apology, Daryl cut her off, his head snapping back round towards the truck so that he could look down at her once again, his deep blue eyes locking straight onto hers. "Ain't gotta be sorry, Beth," Daryl said, shaking his from side to side again. All amusement was gone from both his expression and his voice now, and the biker seemed to be deadly serious as he stared down at her. "Jus' surprised me, s'all."

Clearing her throat, Beth suddenly felt _awkward;_ and she couldn't remember why on earth she thought that this could have ever been a good idea.

"I... I didn't have a reason," the blonde stuttered out, all too aware of how quickly her cheeks were turning red. "To come here, I mean," she said when Daryl's frown became impossibly deeper. "Not really, anyway. It's just... I wanted to see you. That's it."

Her explanation seemed to take Daryl by surprise, and Beth didn't miss the way in which his eyes widened and his brow relaxed at her words. For a good few seconds, he was quiet; almost studying her from where he was leaning against the side of her truck, but then Daryl dipped his head down and stared at the ground for a beat or two before he glanced back up at her.

"Alright," he said, nodding his head slightly.

Beth supposed that his response - slight and even shy as it was - was better than any sort of rejection, and she did her best to resist the urge to squeal happily and focused upon fighting the excitement that bubbled up in her chest as she processed the fact that he actually seemed to be _pleased_ about her wanting to see him. Unable to stop herself, Beth fidgeted quite nervously in her seat as she blinked up at him.

"You doin' anythin'?" she asked him, focusing on keeping her voice from wavering as she spoke.

Shrugging his shoulders, Daryl appeared completely unphased by both her question and the situation. "Not really," he said, glancing back around the parking lot for a second or two before he focused his gaze back onto Beth.

Smiling, she tucked some hair behind her ear and rolled her shoulders back against the seat. "You hungry?" she asked, her voice raising at the end of her question.

"Nah."

Despite the smirk that was very obviously present on Daryl's lips, Beth couldn't help but pout at his response, completely unimpressed by it. "You're not helpin' me much here, you know," she said to him, and although he didn't necessarily grin at her, Daryl did offer his teeth to her before he chuckled, the sound low and rumbling in his chest as he nodded his head in the direction of his bike.

"C'mon," he said to her, starting to push himself upright from where he had been leaning against the door of her truck. "I'll drive."

Scoffing, Beth quickly shook her head and turned the key in her truck so that it roared to life. "No way," she said to him, grinning playfully out of the window. "You hop in here, an' _I'll_ drive."

From where he was standing several steps backwards from the truck, Daryl didn't look very impressed with her suggestion, and Beth let out a heavy sigh as she stared over at him. "There's no point in me leavin' my truck here an' you having to drop me off at home - at least you work here. You can get the bike whenever you want."

It was Daryl's turn to sigh this time, and he threw a longing look towards his bike before he looked back at Beth once again. "Alright," he agreed, causing Beth to grin widely. "But move your ass over. I'm drivin'."

* * *

 **OK, so I'm sorry for the lack of smut and sexual tension in this chapter, but I'm tryyyyyying to get these two to get to know each other a little bit better, and just dry humping each other 24/7 isn't going to get them to progress much further on an emotional level.**

 **I purposely left out the conversation with Carol because I feel that you as readers already know everything that I was going to have her fill Beth in on. I will be addressing their conversation in the next chapter and bringing up what was said between them, but just in case you wanted a recap/wanted to know what Carol will have said to Beth, it's that:**

 **\- Candy is a prostitute who Merle was sleeping with a few months ago, but she wanted to be more to him (i.e. his girlfriend) and Merle didn't want that. Almost immediately after he moved on to something else and left her behind, Candy went to the local police and said that she wanted to press charges against Merle for rape.**

 **\- Rick Grimes, the Sheriff, has an (arguably) amicable relationship with the club, and for one reason or another he seems to have a liking for Daryl in particular. Now, Carol isn't sure whether this is because Rick just sees something good in Daryl or whether it's because he has another motive (perhaps Rick wants Daryl on side with the police in the event that Daryl becomes the President of the club, for example) but she knows for certain that Rick wants to try and make Daryl's life - and subsequently the club's life - easier at this moment in time. This means that Rick is doing everything that he can to prevent arresting Merle, and at the moment Merle is in good stead that there is an overwhelming lack of evidence in support of Candy's allegations.**

 **We will be exploring more about The Governor and the relevance that he has to this story in the upcoming chapters - sorry if that seems to have taken a back seat at the minute, it's just that I wanted to focus on Beth and Daryl's progressing relationship as they both cross into unknown territory with one another.**

 **Congratulations if you've made it to the end of this crazily long authors note! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and please let me know what you think! :)**


	17. Chapter 17

**Okay, so I hope this isn't too confusing. This chapter is from Daryl's POV, and the first part of it explains what happened in the meeting that the club were having when Beth went to pay him a visit, and then the next part sort of picks up a little while after Daryl found Beth in the parking lot.**

 **I think that's clear enough - at least, I hope it is. Enjoy!**

* * *

Whether or not anyone outside of the club actually wanted to believe it, being a member was like being part of a family, and all of the members were respected and valued. There weren't all that many rules for members, but there was one very clear and simple rule - perhaps the most important rule, too - that stated that before any big decisions were made (as in decisions that concerned the club or/and its members), it had to be brought to the table in the clubhouse and presented to all of the members.

Depending on the situation and the little details that contributed to it, different outcomes could arise. Sometimes, the President - in this case, Merle - would enter the meeting room with an idea already formed in his mind that he wanted to present to his brothers, and other times he didn't have a solution to an issue and wanted to hear what his fellow members had to say about it. There were times when members had some potentially important or relevant information that they wanted to bring to the table, and other times members just wanted to pitch their ideas to the rest of the club.

Once a potential solution to any problems or situations had been pitched to the whole of the club, the men would take a vote on it and either agree to carry it through or disagree. It wasn't overly-complicated and it was probably the fairest way to go about doing things - so long as everyone stuck to the rules.

"Alright," Merle said, turning his head quickly from side to side so that his neck cracked loudly. "Let's take a vote."

The statement was more than just familiar to Daryl's ears by now - what, after being a part of the club for the last ten years; first as a Prospect and now as the V.P - and since he was (literally) sat at Merle's right-hand side, it was his turn to vote first. The men had today been discussing what they should do about one of their main gun suppliers who Merle had discovered was also selling to one of their rival gangs, and they were taking a vote on whether or not to continue doing business with the supplier.

As much as Daryl agreed that the information was frustrating, it was still a no-brainer as far as he was concerned - at the end of the day, their supplier was one of the best around these parts, so it didn't come as much of a surprise that rival gangs were doing business with them - and he simply nodded his head once when Merle looked over to him, not bothering to vocalise his thoughts on the matter. The rest of the members were clearly thinking along the same lines as the V.P because the vote to continue business as normal with their supplier was completely unanimous and over in a matter of minutes, and when Merle hit the gavel, the action was filled with a mixture of laziness and confidence.

Thankfully, nobody seemed to want to wait around much longer - after all, to say that not much had been brought to the table in terms of interesting or important subject matters, the meeting had nonetheless already been dragged out long enough at this point - and the sound of relaxed chatter and tables scraping backwards across the floor met Daryl's ears quick enough.

As the men all began to leave the room in drips and drabs, Daryl locked eyes with Merle and slowly stood up to his feet. His brother eyed him up and down, suspicion evident on his sharp features, and the younger of the two nodded his head once. "Need to talk to you," Daryl said, and Merle just nodded before he rose to his own feet, a long, tired sigh escaping his lips as he did so.

Slowly, Daryl made his way over towards the doorway and once all of the men had left the room, he pushed the door to a close and made sure that it was properly shut. As much as he loved his brothers and trusted them all with his life, this was a matter that needed to be discussed between him and Merle; not just as kin, but as the President and Vice President of the club.

"You're doin' jack shit about The Governor."

The words spurted out of his mouth before he even knew what it was that he was saying, and all of a sudden, Daryl felt _angry._ He had been calm for so long - weeks and weeks now - and he had been patient, too; but all of a sudden he felt consumed by his rage, and he balled his hands into fists and dropped them by his sides in an attempt to stop them from shaking - or at least make it not as obvious to his older sibling that he was physically affected by his anger.

Unsurprisingly, Merle seemed completely relaxed as he rested his legs against the long wooden table that was positioned in the centre of the room. The older of the two brothers rolled his shoulders before he crossed his arms over his chest, and he looked at Daryl with an unreadable expression on his face for a good few seconds before he finally spoke up.

"An' what the _fuck_ do you want _me_ to do about him, huh?" Merle asked, his words harsh but his tone casual enough that they could easily be talking about what they had eaten for breakfast that morning.

In all fairness, this is what Daryl had expected - for Merle to get defensive about the subject, especially if he thought that his younger brother was questioning his leadership. But if he was being honest, the only thing that Daryl cared about was Beth. Even The Governor just looking at her would have been a step too far in Daryl's book, but doing what he did - planning what he did to her and getting his men to carry it all out - deserved retaliation, and it deserved it _now._

But Daryl was so angry - at The Governor and his men for doing what they did to Beth, at Hershel Greene for being too shit-faced to even notice that his youngest daughter was _missing_ for a good few days at least, at his brother for stalling this long without doing a single thing about it - and he didn't even know how to articulate all of the things that he wanted to say to Merle.

He tried, though.

"I don't know, man," Daryl said, shaking his head as he spoke. "But - but what he did. To Beth. 'S'gotta... _we've_ gotta do somethin'."

Another sigh - more frustrated this time, as opposed to tired - and when Daryl looked back to Merle, he noticed that his brother actually looked pretty damned pissed.

"You're my baby brother," Merle said, a deep frown settling on his features as he stared over to Daryl. "Ain't no-one ever gonna love you 's much as I do. But I sure as hell ain't startin' a war over some _girl,_ jus' cause you've gone an' gotten yourself whipped over her pussy."

The first thing that came into Daryl's mind was Beth - Beth and her light hair and her bright smile and her happy attitude and her sweet heart - and all that he wanted to do in that moment was punch his brother. Merle didn't know shit about Beth - didn't know how _nice_ she was, didn't know how smart she was or how funny she could be or how she seemed a little shy sometimes or how she was vulnerable but she was so strong, too - and he was so used to involving himself with females who would give it up to him for absolutely nothing that he couldn't see how Beth was nothing like that at all.

"Daryl," Merle said, and the younger of the two focused back on his brother instead of allowing his mind to run wild. "She's jus' another girl - an' hell, I could at least find you one who knows a thing or two 'bout plea-."

"She ain't _just_ anythin', you asshole," Daryl snapped, practically sneering at his brother as he spoke. Narrowing his deep blue eyes, Daryl felt that protective instinct that he had when it came to her sneaking back up inside of him; and once again, he found himself speaking without actually realising what he was saying. "She's my old lady."

* * *

The sound of Beth's tinkling laughter filling the space of the truck as Daryl drove away from the garage was definitely something that he thought he could find himself actually getting used to, and the thought of that alone caught him off guard something awful.

It wasn't as though Daryl wanted to feel uncomfortable around Beth, but he literally didn't have a clue what the hell he was doing when it came down to things like this. Despite the fact that he was quickly coming up to the middle of his thirties, the biker didn't have much experience at all with women and relationships and attachments and even just feelings in general, and a part of him had never even wanted any experience with it all, either. The only woman he had ever loved in his life had been his ma, and she'd left him before he'd even reached ten years old; burning herself and his home to the ground in what had supposedly been an accident, but Daryl had never quite believed that side of the story.

She wanted out - wanted to get away from Will Dixon almost as much as her sons did. And she could have done it in so many different ways: she could have kicked him out on his sorry ass and sobered herself up, she could have packed up and left and ran away in the middle of the night along with her boys, she could have gone to the police about the abuse and had him locked up for all the shit that he put them all through.

But instead, she chose to opt out of life itself; and in the process of doing that, she left her two sons behind to pick up the pieces of the mess that she escaped from.

From where Daryl was sat in the drivers seat of Beth's truck, he couldn't help but smirk at the sound of her giggle. He chanced a glance over at her out of the corner of his eye - taking in her bright smile and her happy features and how _comfortable_ she looked sat beside him, how natural it seemed for her to be there - before he looked back out towards the road ahead of him.

"Ain't that funny," Daryl said to her as he stared straight out of the windscreen, but as he spoke, his own lips seemed to betray him and they turned upwards even more.

* * *

When Daryl had first spotted Beth's baby blue truck parked up in the lot of the garage, he'd had absolutely no ideas as to why she would be there - and of all of the things that had ran through his mind in the seconds that it took him to stride over to the car and knock on the window, the last thing that he had expected was for her to be waiting for him. Even now, after he'd had enough time to process it, the biker didn't really understand why on earth Beth Greene would actually want to come and see him of all people unless she actually needed something.

Come to think of it, Daryl didn't know anyone who wasn't a member of the club who ever wanted to see him for no real reason at all.

Since her waiting for him had been a complete surprise on Daryl's part, it wasn't as though he'd thought of any plan as to what he could possibly do with Beth, but driving to his apartment block had definitely not crossed his mind. Well, that was a lie - it had crossed his mind, but he had shooed the idea away almost immediately, refusing to entertain the thought of taking her back to his place. After what he'd done with her just a week or so before in her own home - in her _daddy's_ home - Daryl didn't even want to think about what he would end up doing with her, or doing _to_ her, in his own apartment.

Out of everything that Beth deserved, it definitely wasn't to be stuck with him - although it was proving to be incredibly difficult for him to keep her at arms length, especially when it genuinely seemed as though she wanted him close.

But after driving around town for a while, listening to Beth talk on about college and her classes, he opened his mouth and asked her as casually as he possibly could whether there was anywhere that she wanted to go. The blonde had shrugged her shoulders and smiled at him almost shyly before she suggested that maybe they could just go back to his place, and as much as Daryl wanted to refuse her, he honestly couldn't.

So, he nodded his head once and drove down the dark roads of the town that led towards his apartment block, allowing Beth to continue to talk on about one of the tests that she had coming up. It didn't take him long to figure out that this girl was smart, but he hadn't thought much about her classes and what they might entail before - after all, Daryl hadn't even made it to his final year of high school, never mind even considered the option of college - but now that she was actually giving him a bit of insight into her day-to-day routine, it sounded _tough._

By the time that the pair of them finally made it to Daryl's apartment block, it was getting late - definitely gone ten o'clock, if not closer to eleven - but as far as he could tell, Beth wasn't at all phased by the time. She waited until he pulled the keys out of the ignition of the truck before she made a move to hop out of the vehicle, and Daryl quickly followed suit, making sure to lock it behind them. Despite the fact that he worked on cars for a living, it had been a while since he had driven once because he much preferred to use his bike, and he noticed that his legs felt a little bit stiff as he made his way over towards the staircase that led up to the second floor of the block, where his apartment was located.

Being as polite as she always was towards him, Beth allowed for Daryl to lead the way up the staircase towards his apartment, and the biker figured that she probably wouldn't remember which door was his anyway. He could hear her following quickly behind him as he took several long strides down the way towards his apartment, and he made fast work of unlocking it, although he made sure to step backwards so that Beth could enter his place first.

Perhaps it was simply out of habit, or maybe he was feeling a little bit more on edge because he had Beth with him; but either way, Daryl narrowed his eyes and scanned the area in a matter of seconds, gladly noting that there didn't seem to be anybody around. When he was satisfied that nothing was going to disturb them, the biker followed Beth inside, making sure that he locked the door behind him.

It didn't surprise him that Beth was stood looking a little bit lost in the middle of the entrance hallway, and she offered Daryl a shy smile as she blinked over at him. "It feels weird, comin' in through the front door like that," she commented as she crossed her arms over her chest as though she was cold.

The subtle movement had Daryl suddenly wanting to turn the heating on - because despite the fact that summer was almost upon them and the heat in Georgia was getting close to unbearable during the day, his apartment always seemed to (thankfully) be more on the chilly side, and the blonde was only dressed in a purple tank top and a pair of blue skinny jeans.

Choosing not to comment on her statement, Daryl tilted his head in the direction of the kitchen - which was located on the right hand side of the hallway - before he made his way into the room. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Beth would follow him in here, and although he felt bad for literally blanking her words, he wasn't at all sure what he was supposed to say to her. In a way, Daryl understood why she was probably feeling a little out of place - after all, the last time that she had been here, she had been practically unconscious for days, and the only reason that she made it inside of the apartment was because he had carried her up from the car. It made sense that it would be odd for her to come back here now that she wasn't battered and bruised and injured, but there was a part of Daryl that didn't really want to remember her like that.

So he tried his best not to.

"You hungry?" Daryl asked as he flicked on the under-floor heating, and before Beth could answer his question, her stomach growled loudly. Whipping his head over his shoulder so that he could see her blushing furiously from where she was stood in the doorway of the kitchen, Daryl couldn't fight the smirk that was playing on his lips. "Take that as a yes," he said, chuckling as he made his way over to the fridge, but when he opened it up he immediately frowned at the sight of the contents.

There was barely any food inside of the fridge - a packet of ham wrapped up in tinfoil, an unopened bag of grated cheese, a stick of butter, a bag of assorted chocolate treats and a pint of milk. Licking his dry lips, Daryl cursed under his breath before he grabbed for the block of butter and slammed the fridge door shut, his deep blue eyes rising to meet with Beth's from across the room.

"You like toast?" he asked her, hoping not to die of embarrassment at the sparse content of food in his kitchen. It wasn't as though he lived like this all the time; it was just that he was due to go on a big shop any day now, but he didn't really have time until he got a day off in two more days, and none of the stores around town were open late enough for him to visit unless he went immediately after work.

Beth was still lingering in the doorway of the kitchen, her arms now uncrossed so that her hands could be tucked into the back pockets of her jeans. The girl looked so damn beautiful all the time, but Daryl really noticed just how effortless she looked now that she was here in his home.

"Yeah," she answered, nodding her head up and down. "I love toast."

The thing is, Daryl knew that Beth was a genuinely nice person - he'd known that from the first time that he spotted her helping out her drunk daddy at a bar where she definitely didn't belong - and he knew that she definitely meant everything that she said. Still, Daryl couldn't help himself but to roll his eyes anyway in response to her answer.

She was so enthusiastic all of the time - so happy and light and carefree - and she really was just everything that he wasn't, everything that he never would or could be.

"You know I can jus' take you home," Daryl said, shrugging his shoulders as he carelessly placed the stick of butter down on the counter top. "You don't gotta eat here. Ain't like I mind -"

"No," Beth said, cutting him off almost a little too loudly. The sound of her speaking in the tone that she used momentarily caught Daryl off guard, and he froze up completely as he stared blankly over at her. The smile that spread over her blushing face was slightly sheepish, and Beth awkwardly tucked a strand of hair behind her ears as she looked directly back at him. "I definitely want to eat here, Daryl," Beth said, tilting her chin upwards as she spoke. "An' I jus' told you, I _love_ toast."

It was so stupid, Daryl knew - knew because this girl was amazing and perfect and way out of his league, knew because this girl was kind and sweet and better than anyone else he had ever met in his whole fucked-up life, knew because this girl deserved everything that he could ever possibly offer her and more. Nothing that Daryl could give to her would ever be enough, would ever be _good_ enough, he knew; but that didn't change the way that he felt about her, didn't do a thing to help stop his chest from aching at the sight of her smile or to help stop his mind from wandering to thoughts of her almost every day.

But still, Daryl let out a huff of breath that sounded almost something like a laugh, and he shook his head as he reached into one of the cupboards to grab a couple of slices of bread for them both. "Alright," he said as he closed the cupboard door and placed the bread inside of the toaster. "Whatever you say, girl."

* * *

By the time that Daryl had fed both Beth and himself, it was pushing half past eleven; and despite the fact that he supposed he could really drive her back home easily if he wanted to - and god, he would without hesitation if she asked - or she could even just drive herself, but it seemed to the biker that Beth actually _wanted_ to spend the night at his place.

And hell, it wasn't as if he was going to say no to her, wasn't as if he was going to deny her of anything that she wanted. Besides, despite the fact that he had been a little apprehensive about the blonde even coming into his apartment just a few hours before, the thought of her actually staying over at his place once again was something that Daryl found himself wanting and increasing amount, too.

In his mind, he highly doubted that he would ever be able to actually vocalise any of his thoughts to her - even if he really wanted to. As far as he was aware, his intentions were as good as they possibly could be, and Daryl had been actively trying his hardest to resist giving in to the temptation of her. It was constantly on his mind that this girl was too sweet and too nice and too damned good to be even in the same room as him; but then Beth had this way of drawing him in - with her laugh and her smiles and her words - and Daryl knew that, at this point in time, he was well and truly fucked.

Hell - this tiny slip of a girl could easily be the death of him.

Especially when she was spending the night at his apartment.

In the back of his mind, Daryl couldn't help but think to himself that it wasn't as though this would be the first time that she was staying over here, not the first time that she would be sleeping in his bed and - most probably - wearing his clothes. But there was something different about this entire visit, and had been from start to finish, and it had been the fact that this time, her decision to be here had been made on her own. Nobody had forced her here - he hadn't pulled her close to his chest and carried her from the car to his bed like he did just a few weeks before - and she had been conscious when she walked through the door, not bloody and battered and so broken.

Tonight, Beth Greene was anything but weak, anything but vulnerable - and hell if that didn't make him her target.

"You don't gotta stay here, you know," Daryl found himself saying as he absent mindedly rushed around the expanse of his bedroom in a quick attempt to tidy it up before she paid any real attention to the clutter. It wasn't dirty or unclean, but it was a little messy - a few items of clothing strewn out over the floor that he gathered up and placed into the wash basket in the corner, a couple of half-open drawers that he pushed to a close. It might not be perfect, but it was the best room that Daryl had ever had in his life, and there was a part of him that genuinely wanted Beth to like it in here.

(A part of him almost dared to believe that she already did.)

Once he was satisfied with the appearance of the room, Daryl turned around so that he was facing Beth, who had sat herself down at some point at the edge of the double bed. Thankfully, the sheets were clean and readily made, and Daryl let out a long breath as he watched her run a hand over the duvet sheets.

"I'm happy stayin' here," Beth said, her voice soft and low as she gazed down at the plain sheets. Her hand stilled in her motions before she quickly shot her head up so that she could look back at him, something unrecognisable in her wide light blue eyes. "So long as you don't mind."

Was this girl bat shit crazy?

So long as he didn't mind? Honestly - was she for real?

Hell, even _he_ would be concerned if he actually did mind, and considering how tough Daryl was on himself, that was actually saying something. But still, in that moment, the pretty blonde looked so unsure and so hopeful as she gazed up at him with questioning eyes, clearly looking for some sort of reassurance from him, that Daryl honest to god couldn't find it within himself to even be close to being blunt with her. Visibly swallowing, Daryl shook his head from side to side.

"Nah," he said, his voice gravelly as he locked eyes with her. "Should know I don't mind."

He had never been good with words, but Beth absolutely beamed at his response - beamed at him like he had just recited some fancy poem to her, her pearly white teeth showing and everything - and she seemed to physically relax from where she was still perched at the foot of his bed. The sight made him feel a little bit more at ease, too, but then it crossed his mind that he still needed to talk to her about something that was still pretty important.

"'Sides," Daryl said, clearing his throat as he awkwardly stepped a little bit closer towards the bed. He couldn't find it within him to keep looking at her - not when he felt like this, like his throat was closing up and his heart was in his mouth and his tongue was wrapped in knots - and he knew that the only way he would be able to get any of his words out in a way that made sense was if he didn't look at her.

"I gotta talk to you 'bout somethin'."

Without actually realising what it was that he was doing, Daryl pulled out the red rag that he almost always carried with him from the back pocket of his dark blue jeans and looked down as he twisted it around in his hands. The biker began to absently pull on the loose strands of it, not looking up at Beth when she responded to him with surprise evident in her tone. "You do?" she asked, her pitch rising. "I... What about?"

For a good few seconds, Daryl genuinely didn't even know where to begin with explaining anything to her. It was more than clear in his mind that something had to be done about what he had said earlier to Merle in regards to the blonde - especially considering the fact that he had so blatantly lied to his older brother without giving it much of a second thought - and he figured that the best way to go about dealing with the situation he had no doubt created was to fill Beth in on what had been said, and to make it clear to her what she was now involved in.

Of course Daryl felt guilty for dragging her into this mess - he figured that the last thing a girl like her would want right now is to be involved with a damned biker gang, never mind be known as his old lady - but at the same time, he wanted to protect her from The Governor and do something about what that bastard had done to her. The only way that Merle would ever actually do something about the attack is if Daryl actually proved that the blonde was important to him - and what better way to do that than announcing to everyone that she actually belonged to him?

Daryl must have been silent for a little while longer than he initially figured that he had been, and he only snapped back into reality when a slightly nervous laugh slipped out of Beth's mouth.

"Daryl," she said, the slight sense of panic lying underneath the surface of her tone making him feel even worse for doing this to her. Out of everything that this girl had been through, the last thing that she needed was more shit in her life - all because of him. "What's... what is it?" Beth pushed, clearly growing impatient about where on earth he was going with all of this. "Is it _bad_?"

It seemed cruel to drag the matter on for any longer, and Daryl decided to choose that moment to raise his head up and look Beth in the eyes. It was a natural reaction considering the desperation that was in her voice, but now - after his cut - he suddenly felt overwhelmed at just how exposed his face was to her now that he could no longer hide his intense gaze underneath long strands of hair. By the way that Beth's eyes shakily explored his whole face, it was evident to Daryl that the blonde could definitely see everything that he was feeling - from the guilt to the frustration to the genuine annoyance - and she let out a shaky sigh as she straightened up on the bed.

"I was speakin' to Merle today," Daryl said to her, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other whilst battling himself to try and maintain the eye contact that the two of them were holding. It was so difficult for him to be like this with her - to actually talk to her about something whilst looking straight at her, to not get lost in his words and his mouth, to not stumble over his clumsy tongue whilst she watched him.

It was so much easier in the dark and so much easier when he couldn't see her looking right back at him; when he couldn't see the crystal blue colour of her eyes or the soft parting of her lips or the small furrow in her brow. It was recently becoming apparent to him just how beautiful Beth Greene was, and he couldn't believe the sort of life that he was ever so slowly dragging her into.

This girl deserved more than he could ever give to her, and despite the fact that the biker did open his mouth with the intention of continuing with his explanation, the words that had been so ready to pour out from him momentarily caught in his throat. All of a sudden, Daryl genuinely couldn't think of anything that he could possibly say to begin to make Beth understand the implications of his earlier actions - to make her see what he had done to her life by opening his big mouth to his older brother.

Clearly, the blonde didn't have the slightest clue where Daryl was going with any of this - not that he could blame her for being confused and oblivious, since he had given this whole speech as such quite the build-up - and she tilted her head t one side as she bit down on her lower lip, the sight of her teeth pulling at it distracting him even more.

More silence came from him, and Beth cleared her throat gently as she blinked up at him. "O-kay," she slowly responded, drawing out the work with her lips whilst her brows furrowed together even more. The word trembled as it left her mouth and Daryl felt horrible for causing her to feel this way - to obviously be nervous and confused and worried.

The next sentence came out of his mouth much quicker than he thought to be possible, given the fact that he had been frozen up in front of her for god knows how long, and the act of speaking once again actually shocked him that much that Daryl almost felt like blushing. "I told him tha' you were my ol' lady," he said, his eyes trained on hers the entire time, and he waited for the realisation to dawn across her features.

It had to have been at least a minute of her blinking absently up at him before Daryl realised that it wasn't coming.

Instead, Beth shifted even more on the bed - bringing one of her legs up so that it was bent underneath her body in a way that was surely uncomfortable - and smiled gently. The confusion was evident on her face. "I..." she began, trailing off before she could even properly begin to speak. The blonde closed her eyes for a couple of seconds before re-opening them - taking in a deep breath before she did so - as she clearly thought over what it was that she was trying to say. "I'm sorry," she breathed out, that nervous chuckle falling from her once more. "It's just... I don't. What does that even mean?"

Perhaps it was a little unfair on his behalf for him to just expect her to be clued in with such terms, but Daryl still looked at Beth with a completely dumbfound expression. "You don't know?" he asked, his own brows pulling together as he looked down at where she was sitting on the bed. The temptation to sit down beside her was most definitely present in his mind, but Daryl attempted to shove it away as best that he could - still, the biker unconsciously took several small steps towards her so that he was almost standing directly in front of her.

 _Dumbass,_ he thought to himself as she blinked up at him with a frown on her face. _How the hell was she supposed to know?_

He didn't know why he had even bothered to ask her that question since it was very obvious that Beth did not have the slightest clue as to what he was talking about, and just as Beth opened her mouth to speak up, Daryl cut her off before she could get any of her words out. "Means you're mine," he said, his voice low and deep as he continued to stare directly at her, not really thinking much about what he was saying at this point. It just seemed much easier for him to just open his mouth and allow the words to come out before he thought much of them.

The blunt explanation seemed to surprise her, and Beth's eyes grew wider as a result of his words. "Yours?" she clarified, her tone slightly breathless, and all that Daryl could do was nod once. She didn't seem all too horrified just yet, but he knew that it would come - and it wasn't as though he would be able to blame her, either. "Like... Like we're _together_?" she asked, and Daryl found himself stepping even closer towards her once more.

In a move that was probably far too casual considering how tense he was feeling, Daryl shrugged his shoulders as he glanced down at the red rag that was still in his hands. "Guess so," he said to her, exhaling a deep breath. "It don't sound like much now, that 'm sayin' it, I know, but... But it's sorta _more._ Than that. Ain't like we're married or anythin', but... Jus' means that you're mine. An' that's it."

Slowly, Daryl's deep blue eyes trailed back up to Beth's face, and she seemed to be thinking deeply about the words that he had just said to her. "So..." she began, that tilt in her head returning. "You mean it like... As in I _belong_ to you? Or somethin'?"

Beth's own words seemed to be slightly more hesitant now, but her voice was much stronger all the same - not shaking or wavering at all. Surprisingly, Daryl still didn't find there to be any anger or frustration on her pretty features, but he could tell that she was incredibly confused and also taken aback.

"Or somethin'," he grunted, not knowing what more to say to her considering the fact that she was basically spot on with her question. It was silent between them for a long few seconds whilst his confirmation sank in, and after a while of Beth sitting in thought, Daryl let out a long sigh. "'m sorry," he said, shaking his head as he stared down at the rag in his hands.

"For what?" she asked, shifting on the bed once again so that both of her feet were firmly placed on the floor.

When Daryl didn't make any attempt to say anything in response to her question, Beth moved to stand up from where she had been sat down, and the action was enough for him to raise his dark eyes up to meet with hers once again. It was impossible to explain to Beth what he was sorry for, because he was honestly sorry for everything - sorry for the situation that she had found herself in before they crossed paths, sorry for what happened to her as a result of men who wanted nothing more than to hurt him and his club, sorry for what he had now well and truly dragged her into as a result of his carelessness and his want for her.

"For everythin'," Daryl said as he stared over at her, and Beth shook her head from side to side as she made a slight step towards him. "Didn't mean for any of this to happen," he continued, unsure of where the words were coming from as she stepped even closer again. "I didn't _think,_ an' I'm _sorry_ -"

It was the feeling of her warm, slender hands resting on either side of his stubbled face that brought Daryl back to reality - back to that moment, back to _her_ \- and his eyes widened ever so slightly when he realised just how close she was to him now. Her eyes were locked onto his and he couldn't for the life of him even begin to guess as to what she was searching for in his gaze, but whatever it was that she wanted or was looking for, Beth obviously found it - or maybe she didn't - and was satisfied with the result, because the next thing that he knew, her lips were being pressed against his.

Naturally, the biker froze up at the initial contact, but he quickly relaxed into the kiss and found himself returning it within seconds. From where she was pressed up on her tiptoes so that their lips could meet, Beth's shoulders practically sagged with relief when he returned the pressure of her kiss, and Daryl wasted no time in wrapping his own hands around her tiny waist.

And it had been so long since he had kissed her last - most definitely over a week by now, if not even longer - and all that Daryl had wanted in the time that they had been apart was her. This constant sexual tension and the ever lasting push and pull between them was honest to god driving him absolutely insane, but in spite of himself, he absolutely loved it. The blonde was more than responsive to his kiss, and it wasn't long before her mouth had opened up against his so that he could enter it, and her tongue was probing against his in a matter of seconds.

Before Daryl could control himself or really keep himself in check, he found that he was being much more forceful with Beth. His fingers were digging into the flesh of her hips above where her jeans started much harsher than they were before - to the point where they might actually leave marks on her porcelain skin - and his teeth clashed against her own as he wildly upped the tempo of their kiss. Underneath his touch, Beth gasped into his mouth; and the sound of her breath hitching whilst her tongue pushed against his spurred Daryl on even more.

Without even realising what it was that he was doing, Daryl pushed against her body so that he was guiding Beth back towards his bed, and he waited until the back of her knees hit against the mattress and she fell onto it before he followed suit.

The girl was strong, that much he knew; but it didn't mean that Daryl wasn't still a little bit worried about crushing her tiny frame underneath his much broader one, so he placed his hands on either side of her head and kept himself balancing slightly above her as he began to kiss her once again. Beth's hands wound themselves around the back of his neck as she moaned into their kiss, her fingers playing in his hair as she began to writhe beneath him, and -

A large noise coming from outside had the pair of them separating suddenly. Beneath him, Beth's eyes were wide and her breathing was laboured as both of their chests rose and fell at a rapid rate, and Daryl pushed himself backwards slightly so to give them both some room. The noise was followed by some shouting - it sounded like a woman and a man were arguing, and it was the woman who sounded closer to the apartment - and although the words that the couple were saying were inaudible from inside of the apartment, the pair of them were frozen on the bed regardless.

It was only a minute or so later that a door slammed shut and the shouting ceased, but the spell between Beth and Daryl seemed to have been lost at this point. Daryl found himself looking directly at the girl who was still trapped beneath his body for a good few seconds, and just when he was about to roll away from her, Beth pushed herself upwards to press a much more chaste kiss against his lips. Despite the fact that his tongue had literally been in her mouth just moments before, the small gesture somehow felt impossibly more intimate, and Daryl didn't know how to respond to it whatsoever. Instead of doing anything at all, he continued to be frozen above her, and when Beth lay back against the sheets a light giggle escaped her lips.

"You sure you don't mind me stayin'?" she asked, her voice low and quiet, and it took him a minute to realise that she was being playful. There was a glint in her light eyes that hadn't been there before, and - suddenly feeling sheepish - Daryl prodded Beth gently in the ribs in response before he rolled away from where he had still been hovering over her body. His back hit the sheets and he stared straight up at the ceiling from where he now lay beside her, resisting the urge to tilt his head and watch her to see where she was looking.

He knew that he had been right earlier on - this tiny slip of a girl really was going to be the death of him.

* * *

 **Phew. A lot to take in there, huh?**

 **As always, thank you for reading and please review :)!**


	18. Chapter 18

Morning light streamed through the drawn curtains and illuminated the sparsely decorated bedroom, and despite the fact that it was far too early in the morning for her to usually even consider the idea of stirring awake, Beth found herself slowly stretching her body out against the soft mattress. For her, this was the biggest problem when it came to living in Georgia during the summer months - the sun always seemed to just be so bright, and it happened to sit so high up in the sky - even at such a premature hour - and it was incredibly difficult not to be disturbed by the light of it.

As she began to come to, Beth slowly blinked open her eyes, and it was only as consciousness came over her that the blonde actually recognised where she was. It took a few seconds longer for her to realise how she even happened to be there since memories from the day and the night before returned to the forefront of her mind at an unhurried pace, but as she eventually recalled the majority of the small details, Beth finally began to register the fact that she was currently wrapped tightly around another person's body.

 _Daryl's_ body.

At some point during her slumber, Beth had latched herself onto the older man - and for dear life, it would seem. With one of her legs hoisted up around his hip and both of her arms wrapped tightly around his upper body, Beth was well and truly stuck to him; and having one of his muscular arms draped over her shoulders wasn't necessarily helping in terms of preventing their closeness, either. As far as she could recall, the blonde hadn't had any particularly disturbing dreams the night before that would cause her to unconsciously seek comfort in the form of Daryl Dixon's arms; but in all honesty, it didn't really seem to be strange to her at all that she would want to be close to this man, even in her sleep, so perhaps she didn't need to attempt to pick apart excuses for her behaviour.

Another problem with Georgia during the summer was the heat, and apparently, Daryl hadn't thought to switch on the air conditioning the night before. Both of their bodies were slick with sweat, but Beth tried not to think too much about it as she gently pried her head away from where it had been burrowed into the crook of the older man's neck whilst she slept. Stifling a yawn, Beth pushed herself up onto one of her elbows and slowly blinked up at his sleeping face, noting to herself just how peaceful he looked right now.

There was no downward weight on his mouth or a knot between his brows, nor was there any tightness in his eyes or any clench in his jaw. Beth realised that this was the first time that she had ever seen Daryl Dixon well and truly _relaxed,_ and although she was keeping in mind the fact that she definitely didn't want to wake him up just yet, she also didn't seem to be at all able of preventing her free hand from shifting from where it had been resting flat against his chest so that it was now dancing over his forehead and settling in his hair.

Moving as carefully as she possibly could so not to disturb him, Beth began to run her fingers back and forth through the strands, still not completely used to the way that it looked since he'd had it cut much shorter. The difference in their age had never actually been something that Beth had bothered much about, never mind been something that actually pushed her away from Daryl, but she still thought to herself that he definitely looked younger since he cut his hair.

As for how much time passed by her in that moment, Beth would never know. It could have easily been seconds or minutes or hours as she allowed herself the opportunity to really explore all of Daryl's features with her eyes, all the while continuing to run her fingers through his hair. The thought crossed her mind that Daryl Dixon could have easily been the most handsome man that she had ever laid her eyes upon, and a soft sigh escaped her lips as she blinked down at him.

"You're starin'."

The sound of his voice - raspy and thick with sleep, rougher than it usually was and his tone ever so slightly teasing - caught her completely off guard, and Beth couldn't help herself but to yank her hand away from his hair in surprise. Slowly, Daryl's deep blue eyes opened up to meet with her own, and despite the fact that he was clearly attempting to fight it, Beth spotted the small smirk that played on his lips as he gazed up at her. She knew that her cheeks absolutely had to be on fire as she stared down at him with slightly parted lips, and she truly wanted nothing more than to shrink into herself and hide away from his eyes.

Still, Beth Greene was as stubborn as they came, and in spite of her embarrassment at being caught - _how could she not have noticed that he had woken up?_ \- Beth held his gaze, refusing to give the biker the satisfaction of looking away.

For some time, neither of them spoke to the other, and the silence was both awkward and comfortable in the strangest of ways. Daryl seemed to be more than content to simply lay on his back and stare up at her - all sorts of unreadable things dancing in his eyes - and his only adjustment was to prop the arm that wasn't splayed lazily over her shoulders behind his head, nudging him upwards ever so slightly.

At the movement, Beth suddenly became much more aware of the fact that his hand - the skin of it a combination of rough and smooth, the feel of it warm and gentle and yet still heavy, still very much _present_ \- was resting at the back of her neck. There must have been something on her face that gave her realisation away because Daryl's eyes widened by a slight fraction and Beth felt his fingertips twitch uncontrollably against her sweaty skin, and - completely unable to resist the temptation of it - it was now Beth's turn to smirk.

Before she could revel in the moment for too long, Daryl spoke again; his voice still raspy and thick, the sound of it causing the hairs on the very back of her neck - the ones underneath his hand - to stand alert. "Like wha' you see, girl?" he asked, that slight teasing tone once again present in his sleep-filled voice, and _god,_ Beth had honestly thought that her blush couldn't get any deeper.

It was impossibly for the blonde not to pick up on the fact that Daryl was currently exposing a side of himself that she had never seen before. Whilst their had been some playful elements to their recent conversations - and even some light-hearted, old-fashioned flirting - it had never been like _this_ between them. It had always seemed to be the case that the biker was barely ever vocal with her even at the best of times, but it was silly o'clock in the morning and he had already said more than she was planning on saying, and Beth couldn't help but to be somewhat excited about the fact that Daryl was clearly opening up to her; that he was becoming more comfortable around her, that he was getting used to her being there.

That he was maybe even _enjoying_ her company.

Without realising what it was that she was doing, Beth felt herself being pulled down towards where Daryl was lay so that her face was inching closer and closer towards his own; but before she could reach him entirely, her body froze. Sucking in a sharp breath, Beth's light eyes flickered from Daryl's eyes to his lips and back to his eyes again - subconsciously making her intentions clear to the older man - and she waited impatiently for him to give her some sort of signal that this was okay, that this was what he wanted.

For a good few seconds, the biker didn't give her any signs whatsoever that he returned her desire; but just when Beth was starting to feel disheartened, Daryl used the hand that was still resting on the back of her neck to pull her further down towards him, effectively closing the small distance between them so that their lips could meet.

Beth felt herself sink into the kiss almost immediately, and - choosing to completely ignore the taste of morning breath from both of their mouths and the smell of sweat that clung to both of their sticky bodies - she opened her mouth against his, allowing his tongue to probe into her mouth. Initially, the pace of the kiss was slow, allowing the time for them to explore one another as though they had never done this before; but as Beth's hips instinctively began to gyrate over Daryl's from where her leg was still hitched up across him, their kiss quickly became more passionate.

The biker practically growled into Beth's mouth as she continued to rock herself against his growing erection, and the sound just happened to spur her on even more. Heat flashed to her dripping core as she ground herself against him with impossibly more force, and as the speed of their kiss increased, it equally began to lose it's neatness. Beth lost count of the amount of times that their teeth clashed, and a small amount of saliva was trickling down her chin (whether it was his or her own or a mixture of both, she couldn't be sure), but the imperfections of it only seemed to intensify her arousal, and the blonde couldn't recall ever feeling so _needy_ before.

Perhaps her desire had been heightened as a result of the teasing that had occurred between them both the night before (and the lack of sexual satisfaction that came afterwards), but Beth found herself feeling as though she was approaching an orgasm quicker than she ever had done before. Encouraged by the tingling sensations that were shooting through her throbbing clit, Beth whined into Daryl's open mouth as she squirmed against him with more vigour. Her panties were slick with her own arousal, causing the friction to feel even more pleasurable for her, and she wouldn't be surprised if Daryl would have been able to feel her soaking through her underwear.

It wasn't long before Daryl started to push his hips up back against her own so that he was rocking his covered length in time with her own movements, but the pressure clearly wasn't enough for him because before Beth even had time to process what it was that he was attempting to do, Daryl had moved his hand from her neck so that both of his palms were pressing against her waist and then he flipped them over so that she was lay with her back against the mattress. It wasn't as though the biker used enough force for the action to wind her, but it still surprised her to the point where she simply lay blinking up at the ceiling in slight confusion, and it took her a few seconds to catch back up to where Daryl was.

And - oh _hell -_ he had used his teeth to pull down the low neckline of her tee, and due to the fact that she hadn't been wearing a bra, his lips were able to lock around one of her nipples within a matter of seconds. A long, drawn-out moan poured out of Beth's mouth as she threw her head backwards against the white sheet of the bed, and she squeezed her light eyes tightly shut as he continued to pleasure her with his mouth. It was better than anything that she had ever felt before, and yet according to the dull ache in her abdomen and the almost painful throbbing of her core, it still wasn't quite enough.

Daryl's name was the next thing to tumble from her lips, and as if the man could read her mind, he began to snake his hands from where they had been resting on either side of her small waist down until they reached the silky material of her underwear, his short fingernails gently scratching against her smooth skin and causing her legs to tremble. As the biker tugged at her panties and began to slowly pull them down her thighs, excitement rushed over her - especially as the warm air of the room met with her dripping heat - and Beth's hips bucked upwards uncontrollably as the material fell down to her ankles.

Despite the fact that Beth was more than just slightly excited about where this was going, her heart started to accelerate quickly in her chest for a reason that wasn't influenced by her strong and sudden need for pleasure, for release. Before, Beth hadn't given any of this much thought - instead, she had just been going with what she knew that her body wanted, what she was sure that she _needed_ \- but now she was suddenly all too aware about where Daryl was going as he manoeuvred himself further down her stomach.

The biker left a trail of open-mouthed kisses against her abdomen as he inched closer and closer towards her heat, but despite everything that she was feeling, Beth threw herself upwards as Daryl's palms moved to spread her legs apart so that she was now practically sitting upright; her light blue eyes wider than ever as she stared down at his confused expression, one of her breasts still on show from where Daryl had moved her tee as her chest heaved up and down.

Before Beth even knew what she was doing, she panicked, and her thighs clenched tightly together - effectively trapping both of his hands between them - as she continued to look straight into Daryl's deep blue eyes.

She had never done this - goodness, she had never done anything even _close_ to this - and whilst she had been prepared (in some ways) for what she knew was going to come, at the same time, Beth had never expected for this to feel anywhere near this... _intimate._

"Beth?"

Her name sounded strange to even her own ears, and Beth inhaled a long, deep breath as she moved to brush some of her hair away from her face. The position that she found herself in right now was bizarre, really; and in a way slightly amusing - what, with her soaked panties dangling from one of her ankles, Daryl's chin resting on her bare stomach and her face the colour of beetroot - and despite herself, after a few seconds, Beth managed to push out a much calmer breath.

The last thing that the blonde wanted to do was to ruin the moment between them - not considering how long she had waited for something more from him - and it wasn't as though this was something that she didn't want. For weeks, Beth's body had naturally been responding to Daryl's, and for months she had been tormented by a range of explicit dreams of the biker.

But still, despite all of that, Beth was still nervous and she was still shy; and even with everything that she had hoped for, everything that she had wanted, the blonde had never actually expected any of this to happen. More than anything, Beth felt that it was important that Daryl knew where she stood with this - especially considering the fact that it wasn't as if Beth thought that Daryl was in a similar position to her right now.

Taking into account the fact that he was thirteen years her senior and that he had an infamous reputation with the female population around town for being a hot bad-boy member of a biker gang, it was strikingly obvious to Beth that Daryl Dixon was nowhere near as inexperienced as she was -

\- and still, it wasn't as though Beth even considered the thought that this man would ever push her to do something that she didn't want to do. After how caring and how gentle he had proved to her that he could be - that he had proved to her that he _was_ \- Beth didn't think that anything like that would ever happen between the two of them. But she still wanted him to know where she stood and where she was, and she still wanted him to understand that things with her wouldn't be anything close to what she imagined he was used to when it came to women.

"Daryl," she breathed, her voice steadier than she thought that it would be, given the circumstances. Her heart was still hammering in her chest, and the sight of him blinking up at her with such a soft range of emotions on his face just made Beth want to melt into him. "I -" she attempted, opening and closing her mouth several times as she tried her hardest to maintain eye contact with him. Her cheeks felt as though they were on fire for what could have easily been the tenth time that morning, and Beth cleared her throat before she tried again. "I'm not - I've never -"

"Never?" he asked, cutting her off from her spluttered explanation. Slowly, Daryl raised himself up ever so slightly so that his chin was no longer resting on her abdomen, and Beth bit down on her lower lip as she shook her head from side to side.

"Not that," she said to him as she licked at her dry mouth, noticing the way that his pupils dilated at the sight of her wet tongue emerging and dampening her plump lips.

For a brief while, Daryl seemed to have been pulled deep into thought as he considered the information that Beth had provided him with, and then - just when she was starting to feel like this wasn't going to go anywhere at all - he cocked his head slightly to one side and narrowed his eyes at her whilst pushing himself up further. "Wan' me to stop?" he asked her bluntly, and Beth instinctively shook her head from side to side at a much quicker pace than before.

Seeming to be satisfied with her answer, Daryl settled himself back down once again and gently scraped his fingernails against the insides of her clenched thighs, reminding her that she had trapped his hands between her legs in her sudden state of worry and nerves. The biker didn't seem to mind at all - in fact, Beth noticed that he was smirking once again before he spoke up. "Then you gotta spread your legs for me, sweetheart," he murmured, and the sound of his voice combined with the erotic command intensified the throbbing of Beth's clit.

The blonde practically whimpered as all trace of coherent thought or speech vanished from her, and she found herself giving in to what it was that she had wanted for such a long time as she did as he asked. It felt strange, in all honesty - having her cunt hovering so close to his face - and Beth felt all sorts of awkward as Daryl's eyes locked on to the sight of her before him. But when she felt a puff of his warm breath float over her centre, she lost all sense of discomfort; and when he moved those final inches closer towards her so that he could press a kiss to the very top of her mound, Beth allowed her head to fall back and her eyes to finally close.

As Daryl began to press wet kisses around her shaven skin, Beth noticed that he seemed to be deliberately avoiding kissing her where she wanted him the most; and whilst the realisation of that was frustrating, she was momentarily distracted by the feel of one of his big hands pushing down against her chest, encouraging her body to move so that her back was pressed against the mattress once more. The biker continued with his teasing for a good few minutes longer - his nails lightly trailing up and down the insides of her inner thighs, his tongue and his teeth licking and nipping against the skin around her pussy, his breath hot against her core each time that he inched closer towards it and then pulled away.

Whilst he continued to build her up and up and up, Beth thought to herself that she might either scream out in annoyance or burst into tears, and it was only when he finally placed a wet kiss to the hood of her clit - causing her entire body to jump violently in surprise and pleasure - that Beth finally relaxed, no longer on edge. The biker kissed her lips again and again and again until he used the point of his tongue to draw a few tight circles directly over her bundle of nerves, and that certainly had the blonde crying out into the bedroom.

Not knowing how on earth she was supposed to respond to any of the foreign sensations that Daryl was providing her with, she simply lay back and allowed her body to react as it naturally would to everything that he was doing to her. When Daryl started lapping at her - big long licks with the whole of his tongue, from bottom to top and back again - Beth thought that she was going to explode, but she quickly realised that nothing worked her up half as well as having him flick her clit with his tongue did.

At some point, the biker slipped two of his thick fingers inside of her wet heat, and he swore into her cunt - a quick, hissed-out _fuck -_ as he began to pump in and out of her at a steady rhythm. She was so incredibly wet that he moved in and out of her so easily, the sound of his movements clear to her even over the throbbing beat of her heart, and when his mouth found her lips once again, Beth thought that she may well have been in heaven.

Responding to the signs that she was giving to him that she was close, Daryl pumped his fingers in and out of her impossibly faster, and Beth whined loudly as he pressed the tip of his tongue directly to her clit and moved it in small little circles that had her stomach clenching and relaxing at an almost painful rate. Unable to help herself, a soft laugh began to fall out of Beth's lips as her eyelids squeezed even more tightly shut; and when he moved his lips so that he could suck at her engorged clit, she gasped out Daryl's name with a sharp intake of breath as she finally found her release.

No orgasm had ever felt so powerful before, and Beth's entire body shuddered with the aftershocks of it for some time afterwards. The blonde was so high on her wave of pleasure that she barely even noticed Daryl pulling her panties all the way back up her legs so that they covered her dripping mound, nor did she pick up on the way that he nudged her over on her side before slipping in beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing her back tightly to his chest.

It wasn't as though she was going crazy, but Daryl had _never_ been like this around her before, and she could only think that it must have been a result of the combination of the early hour of the morning and the lust. It wasn't as though he had been able to chase his own release (which was more than clear to her from the way that his rock hard length pressed against her ass through his sweatpants), but Beth was adamant that they would make up for that another time.

For now, though, they would find sleep once again, and she could barely wait to see what this man had in store for her the next time that they woke up.

* * *

Unfortunately, the next time that Beth's eyelids fluttered open, there was no strong arm draped over her small waist, nor was there a warm chest pressed tightly against her back. Immediately disappointed at the lack of warmth and physical contact, Beth squinted her eyes (the light in the room seemed to be impossibly brighter now, despite the fact that the curtains were still very much pulled together) and turned her head over her shoulder, noting the fact that she was now very much alone in the centre of Daryl's king sized bed.

The blonde was hardly pleased at the fact that there was no sign of the biker in the bedroom, but she tried not to think too much about how it might have felt to dreamily wake up with his arms wrapped in a protective hold around her body. Instead, Beth lazily rolled herself over onto her stomach and stretched out onto the floor for her jeans - which had been discarded just before she went to sleep the night before - so that she could tug her cell phone out of the back pocket.

Unlike the light of the sun, the light that came from the screen didn't bother her eyes quite so much, and Beth always put it down to the fact that most people her age were probably much more accustomed to that artificial light than they were to the natural one. Initially, Beth was shocked to find that it was almost eleven o'clock - after all, she couldn't recall the last time that she had slept this late into the day (but in all fairness, Daryl had thoroughly warn her out just a matter of hours before - mostly physically, but emotionally, too).

The thought of what they had done together in this very bed caused Beth's cheeks to tint pink, and she didn't even bother to attempt to fight the small smile that began to pull on her lips at the memory of it. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that Amy would be absolutely thrilled about this new development in her relationship with the older man - if she could even call it that, considering the fact that they hadn't actually spoken about it much - but Beth quickly became distracted by a text message that her sister had sent to her an hour or so earlier.

 _Need to catch up with you soon._ Beth's brows burrowed together almost instantly as she read over the words. It wasn't as though it was necessarily unlike Maggie to message her - because they still went through days or weeks when they would text and call each other quite regularly - and it also wasn't as though there was anything strikingly obvious about the message that screamed that something was wrong, but there was still something about it that had the blonde feeling suspicious, to say the least.

After sending a quick response - just a simple and easy _sounds good -_ Beth locked the device and allowed it to bounce as she dropped it beside her onto the mattress. For a couple of seconds, Beth just blinked up at the ceiling without much set in her mind, but then the sound of something crashing had her practically jumping upright. Complete and utter silence followed afterwards, and the blonde didn't hesitate to kick the covers away from her body and scoot over to the end of the bed so that she could grab for her denim jeans and pull them on.

If she had to take a guess, Beth would happily bet money on the fact that the noise had come from somewhere inside of the apartment, and she frowned at how quiet it now was as she battled to pull the skin tight jeans over her legs.

Call it some sort of intuition, gut instinct or maybe even just plain old stupidity, but Beth wasn't frightened, and she didn't feel particularly worried that something terrible was happening in one of the other rooms. Instead, she was confident in her mind that the cause of the sudden disturbance was Daryl; but when it came to the thought of actually confronting him and checking that he was alright - well, that was a different story entirely.

Not bothering to check over her appearance, Beth tucked some of her long hair behind her ear before she made her way out of the room, closing the bedroom door quietly behind her. Despite the fact that - as far as she was aware - the apartment only had one bedroom, there was still a variety of doors littered on both of the main sets of walls in the hallway, and the blonde was anything but certain about what lay behind the majority of them. Sucking in a deep breath, she began to pad her way down towards the living room, thinking to herself that it was more than likely the best place to start.

As she made her way towards it, Beth noticed that the door to the living room area was slightly ajar, and she stopped just before she could enter and chanced a glance inside. The blonde spotted Daryl before she had even reached out to nudge the door open, and she watched with wide eyes as the biker paced back and forth across the centre of the room. Both of his hands were occupied - one with a phone that was pressed against his ear (but since he wasn't saying anything into it, Beth assumed that it was dialling out) and the other with an unlit cigarette - and Beth moved to step forward, guiding the door open with both of her own hands as quietly as she possibly could.

It wasn't as though she was purposely trying to sneak around on him or eavesdrop as much as it was that she didn't want to startle him - especially not when he looked so furious. As she edged further into the room, Beth noticed the fallen lamp.

The base of it was long and thin and black, and there was no doubt in her mind that it would be reasonably tall if placed upright. Instead, it was lay across the floor, and the cream shade of it had been thrown askew, discarded several feet away. The bulb appeared to be shattered across the hard wooden floor, not all that far from Daryl's bare feet. As her eyes moved upwards from the broken glass up to his body, Beth let out a small gasp at the sight of the hand holding the phone to his ear - it was covered in blood.

The sound of her change in breathing must have caught his attention, because Daryl immediately dropped the cell from his ear and span around so that he was facing her. Now that he was actually looking over in her direction, Beth realised that he was even more furious than she had originally thought. There was something about his blazing eyes - eyes that were always so deep and so dark, but usually calm and soft, too - that made her want to shudder and shrink into herself, but Beth stood still and strong, blinking slowly over towards him.

"What's happened?" she asked, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could even silence herself, and the blonde felt stupid almost immediately for even asking the question. It was blunt and it was forward and it was most probably inappropriate given how he seemed to rapidly be losing all of the composure that she was so used to seeing him have - goodness, he was basically _shaking,_ and Beth didn't doubt that it wasn't because he was cold. "Your hand..." she said, her eyes darting from his own to his bloody hand and then back to his eyes again.

Following her line of vision, Daryl frowned at the blood on his hand as though he hadn't even realised that it was there before he looked back up to Beth again, shaking his head as he did so. Clearly, Daryl was anything but concerned about the condition of his injury, although that didn't necessarily help her to relax. With a huff of breath, Daryl pushed the phone into the front pocket of his sweatpants and moved to stand up straighter, wiping his clean hand over his forehead as he spoke. "Merle's been arrested," he said, his tone gruff. "Jus' got the call from Rick."

Naturally, Beth's brows pulled together in confusion. "Arrested?" she said, her shoulders slumping slightly. It was bad, of course - not ideal in the slightest and obviously not something that Daryl would want for his older brother - but Beth was more than thankful that nobody was hurt or in danger, or perhaps even worse. "Again?"

When she had spoken with Carol, the older woman had cleared up a lot of information for her in regards to the club - especially when it came to both of the Dixon brothers - and although Beth imagined that Carol had most definitely only filled her in on the very basics, she had still clued her up about the club all the same, and the blonde was just grateful to know _something._ Still, the words flew out of her mouth again before she could stop them, and Beth panicked for a few seconds that Daryl would recall the fact that he hadn't been the one to tell her about Merle's initial arrest several weeks before, but thankfully, he didn't seem to think anything of it.

Instead, Daryl hung his head to the floor and let out a long sigh. It was clear that he was sulking and it was also clear that he was frustrated, and Beth couldn't help but feel guilty for bombarding him with questions at a time when he probably already had plenty of his own. Still, she couldn't help but be curious about what was going on, especially when he had been angry enough to smash up the lamp.

"Yeah," he said, his hands balling into fists, effectively crushing the cigarette that had been resting in between his thick fingers. " _'Gain._ Only this time, it don't look like he's gettin' out. Not any time soon, anyway."

This information just seemed to confuse her even more, and Beth's light blue eyes narrowed as Daryl raised his head to look back towards her. "Why not?" she asked, cocking her head to one side as she stepped further into the room, gradually tiptoeing closer towards him.

There were so many conflicting urges inside of her - part of her wanted to walk away and leave him alone in peace, part of her wanted to hold him close and comfort him, part of her wanted to continue questioning him in an attempt to clear up the blurry picture that he was painting for her - and Beth didn't even know where to start. Physically comforting him was no doubt off the cards considering the fact that he seemed to be so jittery and agitated (and from what she had gathered, this man didn't like to be touched at the best of times), but she sure as hell wasn't prepared to run and leave him, either.

"Some dumb bitch," Daryl said as he rolled his shoulders and breathed out through his nose. _Candy,_ Carol had called her...

The rape charge.

"Makin' false statements to the cops - an ain't none of what she's sayin' is true. Can't know for sure, but... I jus' _know._ " The biker was ranting and his knuckles were turning white as he clenched his fists even tighter. "'Cept apparently, one o' the guys at the station has found some new _evidence,_ an' I..."

Daryl trailed off with another sigh, and Beth let out a soft one of her own. Awful as it would probably seem to anyone else, the blonde was actually more taken by surprise about the fact that Daryl was actually talking to her - that he was opening up this much - than she was about what he was actually telling her. The fact that he had literally opened his mouth and spilled out information regarding himself, his brother and his club had her practically speechless, and she couldn't think of anything at all to say to him.

So instead of saying anything at all, Beth stood completely still, just blinking over at him with an open mouth.

And despite what she had thought to herself shortly before, maybe right now wasn't the best time to ask him about the status of their relationship.

Visibly swallowing, Beth tried her best to think of something helpful that she could say or perhaps even do, but she found herself quickly coming up short. After all, Beth didn't even really know much about anything in terms of prisons and arrests and the police, and all that she did know she had learned from TV shows and movies, so it wasn't as though she was used to any of this.

But maybe having a plan in mind would do the trick.

"So," Beth said, her eyes darting around the room before they trained back on Daryl's. "What now?"

Snorting, Daryl shrugged his shoulders and shook his head from side to side. "I ain't got a fuckin' _clue_ ," he hissed, and although his tone was harsh and his words were short, Beth knew that he wasn't being like this because of her, and his anger wasn't even necessarily aimed at her, either.

Besides, it wasn't as though Beth could actually blame him for feeling this type of frustration or annoyance. In a way, she thought that she could almost relate to his current emotions, given the way that she felt each time that she received a call in the middle of the night from a bartender at some random location demanding that she come and collect her heavily intoxicated father. It wasn't quite the same, of course - after all, her father wasn't responsible for an entire club and he wasn't ever due not to return home for the foreseeable future - but she imagined that the feelings were something similar, or could at least be viewed as such.

Pulling out the phone from his front pocket, Daryl distracted himself with it. "'m gonna call for a meetin'," he murmured, although he seemed to be speaking more to himself than he was to her.

Still, Beth nodded her head up and down as if in agreement - because she supposed that it wasn't necessarily a bad idea for him to meet with the guys who he seemed to regard as family - Beth's eyes danced over the fallen lamp once again. "Yeah," she said, her head still moving up and down. "An' I'll come with you - to the garage. I'll drive you there an' then take myself home," she said, explaining her thought process to him before she realised just how bossy she sounded. "I mean - so long as you don't mind me drivin' you. Jus' figured it was a better idea than me waitin' around here."

Waving his hands a little awkwardly at her, Daryl nodded his head too. "Nah," he said, staring down at the phone in his hands. "S'fine. I - jus' gimme a minute, alright? I'll go get my shit together an' then we can get the fuck outta here."

Breathing out a sigh of relief - even though she wasn't relieved in the slightest - Beth nodded her head. "Sounds good."

* * *

"Don't let him push you away."

The sound of Carol's voice coming from behind her caused Beth to jump from where she had been stood at the sink pouring some cold water into a plastic cup, and she turned her head over her shoulder to look over at the other woman whilst the cup continued to fill. Blinking her wide eyes several times, Beth didn't even bother to feign pretence.

"I'm not," she said, twisting the tap without taking her eyes away from Carol's so that the water stopped flowing into the cup.

After dropping Daryl off at the clubhouse, which was located on the same lot as the garage, Beth had came inside to grab herself a cup of cold water before she headed back home. It wasn't necessarily the departure that she had been hoping for - after all, Daryl had been in a rush to meet with the rest of the club and he had practically jumped out of the passenger seat of the truck as soon as she had parked up - but just before he had shut the door, he had said that he would call her later on, and she supposed that that had to count for something.

"It's tough," Carol said, the closed lip smile on her face close to being sympathetic. "Bein' with someone in a club like this."

It would have been untrue to deny any romantic involvement with Daryl, but the urge to deny an actual relationship with him bubbled within her - more for his own sake than for hers, since she had quickly come to learn that he was definitely not the type to ever actually _go steady_ with anyone around town, and he definitely didn't seem to like the idea of anyone having much to do with his personal business. But just as her mouth came to move, Beth recalled that Daryl had basically announced that they were together with the hopes that it would help do something about the situation with the man who had planned her attack - had told his brother, and effectively the club, that she was his _old lady -_ so she swallowed the words down and just nodded her head once at Carol before she brought the cup of water to her lips, taking a long, deep gulp from it.

The older woman's ice blue eyes narrowed as she looked over at Beth, and the blonde refused to allow herself to feel intimidated around Carol. All in all, the older woman seemed to be nice enough to her - in fact, she had practically welcomed her into her 'family' with open arms, and she had been kinder than most in regards to Hershel when he had been a drunken mess at her bar - but there was still something about her that screamed out to Beth that she wasn't as innocent as she really seemed.

"Daryl is a good man," Carol said, straightening her shoulders so that she stood taller. "But he's had a bad life. They _both_ have, but Merle... He's always taken a different path. Daryl is different." The words that she was saying surprised Beth, and she stood practically frozen against the sink whilst the older woman spoke, their eye contact never breaking. "Look after him."

There was a short pause of silence after Carol had finished speaking, but Beth quickly caught up from how caught off guard she had been and nodded her head once. "I will," she said; and she wasn't even sure where this was really going at all, but she found that she couldn't help but feel as though she needed to reassure Carol that her intentions with Daryl were genuine, especially given how protective the older woman seemed of him.

Giving a tight nod of the head, Carol pursed her lips before she spoke again. "Good," she said, crossing her arms over her chest before she turned her body towards the door, making it clear that she was about to leave. "I'm sure I'll see you soon enough, Beth."

As Carol stepped to leave the room, Beth nodded her head quickly. "Yeah," she said, the confusion that she felt more than evident in her voice as the older woman opened the door to leave. "I'm sure you will."

* * *

 **Sorry that this seemed to take forever to get out to you guys! I really struggled with this one, and I don't know why. I'm hoping that the next chapter to this comes easier.**

 **Anyway - please let me know what you think of this! I love hearing what you think about this story and I'm desperate to know what you think about this chapter, especially with things between Beth and Daryl heating up, and with the plot progressing a bit more. Your words are always so motivating and encouraging.**

 **Until next time x x**


	19. Chapter 19

**Thanks for sticking with me and my crap updating time. I promise that once I'm finished at University/placement for the Easter holidays I'll be back to my chapter-a-day or chapter-every-other-day schedule. Just hold on a few more days, OK?!**

 **This particular side focuses more on Beth and her emotions and what's happening in her life alongside what's going on with Daryl as well as her dealing with Daryl, too. It's lacking in the smut department but I hope that it helps you gain a better insight into how things are going in her head before we delve into deeper waters with Daryl and the club.**

 **Also, I had this idea about writing a little fic to go alongside this one - not anywhere near as big or as long though - that focuses more on Daryl and his life as part of the club; like, who all the members are and what they get up to and stuff. I thought it would be fun to write but I didn't want to do it if nobody would want to read it so if that sounds like something you'd like to read then please comment and let me know :)**

* * *

The dreams of Daryl Dixon are still very much so a regular occurrence.

For a very short while, Beth had honestly thought to herself that having the biker provide some form of physical release for her would help to relieve even just a small fraction of the tension that she could constantly feel bubbling between them; but apparently, she had been wrong - _very_ wrong. Beth had also hoped that taking things that slight bit further with Daryl would help to pull her away from some of the truly sinful places that her unconscious mind seemed to adore travelling to each time that she drifted off to sleep, but it was more than clear that she had also been wrong about that, too.

In fact, if anything at all, it just seemed to her that Daryl's actions were actually _encouraging_ her imagination to run wild - adding more fuel to the fire, so to speak - and it would appear that him providing her any ounce of relief was simultaneously providing her unconscious mind with more material to work with.

For some time now, it has been becoming increasingly uncomfortable to wake up each morning wearing underwear that has practically soaked through to her pyjama shorts with her arousal, and it is especially frustrating during class when all that she wants to do is concentrate (because she has worked far too hard for far too long to get to the position that she is currently in, and she is determined not to fall at the last hurdle because of a _man_ of all things), but her imagination seems to care very little about her degree, and it refuses not to encourage her mind to wander to thoughts of him at every opportunity.

Him and his big hands on her waist, his tanned fingers leaving bruising marks against her porcelain skin.

Him and his wet tongue, invading the space of her mouth without warning and flicking against her clit over and over and over again.

Him and his strong arms pinning her against the back of a wall, giving her no space to move, no space to pull away - not that she wants to do that, of course; but even if she did want to, she couldn't, because his hold on her is so forceful and so brutal and so _rough..._

So these thoughts of Daryl are _distracting,_ to say the least, and half of the time Beth doesn't even attempt to bring herself any release because she knows by now that it just will not work. Now that he has touched her with his hands and his fingers and his mouth, nothing of her own - or anyone else's, she imagines - will ever feel adequate enough to even begin to compare; and even if she _was_ able to get herself off, even if she _could_ push herself over the edge in a similar way that he can, she knows that it won't ever feel as good.

( _Maybe he's ruined her._ )

The majority of the time, Beth feels guilty for thinking these sorts of things about the biker, even if she knows that it's only natural, even if she knows that she can't actually help feeling this way towards him. At quarter to one in the morning, however, she can't help but feel anything but irritation as she is disturbed from yet another of her dreams - _this time, it was his cock in her mouth; and he wasn't being anywhere close to gentle as he yanked on her hair to get her to bob her head up and down the long, thick length of him_ \- by the sound of her phone ringing from where she keeps it underneath her pillow.

Sexually frustrated and still half asleep, Beth groans into the darkness of her bedroom whilst she fumbles around for her cell, and she answers it with her eyes squeezed tightly shut so that she doesn't have to look at the bright screen. She barely even has chance to mumble out her hello before a voice that is barely familiar to her comes from down the line.

"Miss Greene," the man says, sounding equally as tired as she currently feels. "You need to come and collect your father."

 _Of course._ Bartenders who need her father to be removed from their premises' are never usually polite, and the dream is quickly forgotten as Beth sits up in bed and listens to the details of the location of the bar. The place that she has to travel to is not particularly local and is a good half an hours drive or so away, and for once in her life, she wishes that she could stay curled up in her bedsheets; dreaming of Daryl Dixon.

* * *

He doesn't call.

He said that he would and she had believed him, too, but at the same time, there had also been a part of Beth that hadn't actually expected Daryl to call her that night - although she couldn't put her finger on what it was that made her think that way. Still, she couldn't help but feel disappointed at the realisation that he let her down (because _he_ said that he would call, and it wasn't even as if he only said it because she had asked him to.)

Always the type to be honest and genuine with herself, Beth acknowledges the fact that this isn't something that's particularly _important,_ really - it's just a phone call, for crying out loud - and yet that sort of thinking actually seems to just make her feel worse. Because if a phone call honestly is so small and meaningless and effortless on Daryl's part, then _why_ hasn't he just called her already?

It's the first thing on her mind when her alarm goes off in the morning, and it's still on her mind after she has dressed herself and packed away all of her textbooks for the two classes that she has later on that day. Things with her father haven't particularly helped with how she is currently feeling, either, because it would seem that Hershel Greene is - once again - entering what one might call a _rough patch_ when it comes to both his grief and his drinking. Her father could barely even keep his eyes open when she drove to the bar to pick him up the night before, and it's not even noon right now and he is already back on the bottle again.

Each time that Beth goes to get him from a bar, she becomes more and more frustrated at the people who serve him his alcohol, even though she knows that it's probably not fair of her to turn her emotions on them. On days like this when Hershel is at home, she understands how he ends up getting himself into such a poor state because there is usually nobody around to police him; and even if she wanted to, Beth could never have much control over how much her father wants to drink.

But when he goes out to do his drinking, Beth would have thought that the bartenders would at least be able to recognise when someone has had enough - as in if they have a few more, they won't be able to walk or speak or even keep their head held up. However, nobody seems interested in stopping Hershel from his drinking until he has reached the point where he literally cannot drink any more, and it's usually only then that anybody bothers to call her to come and get him.

All in all, it seems that nobody is at all phased about giving Hershel Greene whatever he wants so long as he is coughing up the cash (and no doubt a large tip each time, too), and once he can no longer do that - because he can no longer do _anything_ \- they get his youngest daughter to come and take her away.

It's unfair, she thinks, and it hurts to see him this way, which is something that disturbs her more than anything else. The man who she collected at the bar last night is not a man that she knows, and he is definitely not a man that she particularly _likes._ Her daddy has always been strong and gentle and composed and kind, and how he is currently behaving is everything that she thought he could - or would - never possibly be.

So there's that, and there's the fact that he is already drunk again at eleven a.m, and there's also the fact that Daryl said that he would call her some time last night and he never did, and Beth just all round feels like there is a huge weight on her shoulders. Behaving like a parent to a man who is forty something years her senior is not something that Beth Greene had ever planned for, and it's most definitely taking its toll on her psychological health; but the blonde knows in her heart that this is no time for hiding away like her brother did or running away like her sister has.

Her daddy is sick and she is still here - still here because she won't leave him, still here because she loves him and she _needs_ him to get better - and Beth has finally accepted the fact that it is now time she actually does something about it.

Standing in the entry way to the kitchen, Beth packs up her lunch and neatly places it inside of her messenger bag. As always, she has more than likely prepared way too much food, but she supposes that it's better to have too much than too little, anyway. Just as she snaps the bag closed, she catches the shadow of her father stumbling his way into the living room, and she can practically smell the alcohol on his breath from where she is stood in a completely different room.

Letting out a heavy, defeated sigh, Beth shakes her head from side to side before she checks over her pockets to ensure that she has everything that she needs. Once she's satisfied, Beth makes her way over towards the front door to the farm house, not bothering to even glance towards the living room - or her father - before she leaves.

It has taken her a while to process everything and to come out from her battle of denial, but after last night's episode - more of his go-to _I'm so sorry, Bethy_ and _I don't mean to be this way_ \- Beth has finally accepted the fact that she cannot help Hershel Greene.

Well - at least not _alone,_ anyway.

Locking the front door behind her (just in case), Beth hops down the porch steps and doesn't hesitate to jump into her baby blue truck, which is still parked extremely close to the entrance to the house from where she left it last night. Once she is seated in front of the wheel, the blonde carelessly throws her bag onto the passenger seat before she buckles herself in and starts up the engine; and it's only when it roars to life that Beth allows herself the opportunity to stop for a moment and cry.

.

.

.

"It's not that I'm not interested," Beth says as she highlights the most important parts of the notes that she had made during her last class, her tone mostly disinterested. Believe it or not, the last thing that she wants to be doing right now is discussing Daryl Dixon and the way in which he has left her hanging - and not necessarily for the first time. "It's just that he didn't call last night when he said that he would, an' I -"

" _Beth,_ " Amy interrupts with an impatient growl, and she can practically _hear_ the other girl rolling her eyes from where she is sat across from her the wooden table. "I already _told_ you before. That's jus' somethin' that guys _do. 'Specially_ when they like you. You know - treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen, that sorta thing."

It's true, Amy did tell her this earlier on - and she's said it to her before Daryl even entered her life, too. And the irritated way in which Amy says this to her causes Beth to believe that her friend thinks that this is important and yet very basic, simple information that she should know by now; and in reality, it isn't as though Beth can necessarily blame her for this. After all, Amy has had all of this sort of stuff regarding the opposite gender and how they work drilled into her by her older sister from quite an early age, and even though Beth had her own older sibling to get advice from (if she ever actually wanted it), Maggie Greene was practically a saint when compared to Andrea Harrison.

"Well," Beth says, glancing up at Amy from her pile of notes and jutting out her chin somewhat defiantly, just because. "It's not somethin' that I would want _my_ guy to do. So that's that."

As soon as the words had left her mouth, Beth had known that there wouldn't be much that Amy could say in response, and instead of verbalising whatever it was that she was thinking, her friend just frowned - well, it was more accurate to say that she pouted like a spoiled child, but Beth wasn't in the mood for entertaining her. Unfortunately for Amy, Beth was actually more than content to sit in silence for a while - in fact, she would more than likely prefer it considering the fact that they were in the library of all places, and she had come here with the intention of reading over her detailed notes from today's classes.

After returning her attention back to her lengthy pile of notes, Beth didn't bother to attempt to make any conversation with her friend; and after sitting in silence for a good few minutes - and looking absolutely bored out of her mind despite the fact that Beth knew that she was more than just a little bit behind in her own classes - Amy seemed to realise that talking about Daryl Dixon is not going to get her very far with Beth today. "So," Amy says nonchalantly as she pops a piece of gum into her mouth, passing one over to Beth without checking if she would like one or not. "What do you wanna do for your birthday?"

Her friend's poor attempt to change the subject matter is not subtle at all, and it doesn't miss Beth's attention, either; especially considering the fact that Amy already knows full well that talking about her birthday should be off the cards along with talking about Daryl. It's something that they have spoke to one another about several times, and every time Beth had clearly expressed her feelings about it, and she had also naively thought that Amy would take her last answer about it as being final and leave it at that.

Heaving out a deep breath through her nostrils, Beth raises her eyebrows as she sits back in her seat and offers Amy a pointed look from across the table. "What?" Amy asks, her tone innocent as could be, and she was most definitely going for the butter-wouldn't-melt route when it came to her facial expression (all big eyes and pouty lips and a cocked head to the side), but the way that her lips were twitching showed Beth that Amy was fighting the urge to smile; and although her friend genuinely looked to be completely clueless, Beth knew very well that she was anything but.

After a few seconds of blankly staring at one another - because Beth was far too tired with all of this to even say anything about it - Amy finally gave in, dropping the innocent act with a frustrated huff and a slump of her shoulders. "Come _on,_ Beth," she groaned, throwing herself backwards against the wood of her chair. "You have to do _somethin'_. It's your twenty first."

Shaking her head in a way that is simply dismissive, Beth fought the urge to roll her eyes as she abruptly closed her notepad. At this point, it's more than clear to her that Amy is not going to give up being annoying today; and since she will more than likely be driving her home - it isn't as though Amy ever actually asks her to, but she does hint every now and then about the fact that she has to get the bus home alone now that Beth has 'suddenly' decided that she wants to drive to college - Beth would rather set off now so that she could be home sooner rather than later.

"No," Beth says through gritted teeth as she moves backwards to pull her bag out from underneath her chair. "I don't."

Never one to not be stubborn, Amy continues to push the subject, mimicking Beth's motions in packing her things away. "Of course you do," Amy insists, her tone light and bouncy as she speaks, clearly not noticing the fact that Beth is not in the mood for any of this. "Oh! I actually know a really great bar that we can go to for a few drinks. We can invite Sasha and -"

"Amy," Beth says, zipping up her bag quickly. "Jus' _drop it._ Please."

It isn't as though Beth necessarily intended to be snappy with her friend, but at the same time, she was becoming more and more frustrated with Amy's inability to just stop talking about it. Not once in her twenty years has Beth ever touched a drop of alcohol; and after everything that she has seen her daddy go through as a result of it, she doesn't actually have that much interest in going out and trying it for herself - and that's something that turning twenty one will not change.

Evidently taken aback by Beth's unusual tone, Amy held up her hands in mock surrender, looking more than a little bit sheepish as she did so. "Alright, alright," Amy said. "I'll leave it. For now."

It's not necessarily the answer that she wanted - isn't because she just wants Amy to stop badgering her about this, isn't because she knows that she'll be on her case once again in absolutely no time - but it's one that she will take for the time being.

* * *

It was late on - at least nine o'clock, possibly closer to ten - in the evening when Beth heard the sound of an engine rumbling somewhere in the distance; and although it could technically belong to any vehicle that was passing by, Beth inexplicably just _knew_ that it didn't. From where she had been lay with her back pressed against the mattress of her double bed, Beth froze so that her whole body was tense and still, her thumb stuck in position - hovering over the screen of her cell - from where she had been lazily scrolling through her old pictures.

As the sound of the engine began to grow louder and louder - signalling that the vehicle was approaching the farm house - Beth's eyes widened ever so slightly and, despite herself, her heart began to flutter inside of her chest. It was silly, really, feeling this way about it; and she knew that it could be bad - after all, it genuinely could be _anyone_ out there, and anyone includes one of _The Governor'_ s men - but still, there's something inside of her (instinct or stupidity, she isn't very sure) that tells her that it isn't, that tells her that it's safe.

(She knows she's safe with _him._ )

Instead of glancing out of her bedroom window to get a better look as the headlights shine through her open curtains and illuminate her room, Beth locked her phone and hurriedly placed the device face-down underneath one of her several pillows before she pushed herself to her feet. The blonde smoothed her hands over her pyjamas - just a simple cotton tee and a pair of light blue shorts that suddenly felt tiny on her body - and she tugged at her ponytail with both hands so that it became tighter on the top of her head.

As the noise grew to be louder, Beth walked out of her room and across the hallway. Despite the rumbling noise from outside that seemed to echo through the sturdy building, the blonde was careful not to be too loud as she moved around because her daddy was (surprisingly) fast asleep in his bedroom. She was particularly careful to be near silent as she moved past the doorway to his bedroom, and she then manoeuvred her way down the staircase as quietly as she possibly could, only letting out a breath when she reached the bottom.

Once she had stepped onto the cold floor of the entrance hallway, Beth noticed that the noise had grown much, much louder - unless it just sounded louder because she was downstairs - and she could tell from how close it seemed to be that the vehicle would be pulling in front of the farm house any second now. A pair of her daddy's faded black slippers were sat waiting at the end of the stairs, and Beth slipped her small feet into them just as the sound of the rumbling engine cut out.

Padding her way over towards the front door, Beth stood on her tiptoes and closed one of her eyes so that she had a decent view of what was going on outside of her house out of the small peep hole in the middle of the door. The first thing that she noticed was that the cause of the noise was a bike, which was no surprise to her, really, and the second thing that she noticed was that he was alone.

Somehow, she had known that it was Daryl who was approaching the second that she had heard the sound of the engine in the distance, and the biker didn't necessarily dawdle as he dismounted the bike with a sort of grace that she had never known he possessed. Given the fact that the lighting around the farm wasn't anywhere close to being classed as even half-decent, Beth was barely able to get a good look at Daryl's face; but she did notice that he was wearing his leather vest ( _always_ that vest) and a what looked to be a plain white wife beater, meaning that the whole of his muscular arms were on show to her. The sight of him tilting his neck backwards so that he could get a good look at the house from where he was stood beside his bike caused Beth to swallow loudly, and the next thing that she knew, he was heading over towards the front door.

As he approached the house, Daryl paused mid-stride to glance quickly over his shoulder as if he was checking that there was definitely nobody else around before he began to climb up the white porch steps. Now that he was closer to her, Beth noticed that both of his hands were balled into fists, and - feeling a little panicky and uncertain and confused because she had definitely not been expecting to see Daryl any time soon - she moved swiftly to step backwards and pull the front door halfway open just before he had the opportunity to knock.

It was clear from the surprised look on his face that the action of her opening the door had caught him off guard, and Daryl blinked his deep blue eyes open and closed rapidly before he finally looked at Beth straight in the eyes; the hand that had been raised ready to knock on the door falling limply at his side. Just the sight of him alone had her breath catching in her throat, but Beth fought to stay strong; to keep her facial expression neutral and not to give away any of her true feeling to him.

It had been three days. Seventy two hours.

Actually, it had probably been _more_ than that - closer to four by now - and it was becoming increasingly irritating for her when he orchestrated this whole disappearing act. It wasn't normal and it certainly wasn't nice, especially when he had said that he would call her, and the last thing that Beth wanted to do was to play cat and mouse.

She was almost twenty one and he was almost thirty five - she liked to think that they could behave like adults.

And it wasn't as though Daryl could use the excuse that he didn't have her number - because okay, fair enough, she had never actually _given it_ to him, but she was more than confident that he would have easily been able to access her details from the books at the garage. And even though there was a part of her (a very big part, actually) that was excited and thrilled and _happy_ to see him stood here, there was also a part of her that was still pretty damn pissed off at him, and it was getting to a point where Beth felt that he had to know that.

So instead of flashing Daryl Dixon the dazzling smile that she wanted to, Beth narrowed her light blue eyes and stood up a little bit straighter from behind the door. "Can I help you?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady as she looked him straight in the eyes, fighting a grin when she noted the way that his brows furrowed together at her questions.

Clearly, he had been expecting her to welcome his presence here with open arms; and although a part of her really, _really_ wanted to - wanted to blurt out a quick apology and invite him inside for hot cocoa like she made for him a few weeks before - Beth kept her head strong and remained silent.

From where he stood just a mere few inches away from her, Daryl shuffled slightly awkwardly on both of his feet before he licked his lips and opened his mouth, his eyes darting around her face as he spoke. "Can I come in?" he asked her, his voice husky and rough as though he hadn't used it all day. He blatantly ignored her question, and the realisation of that irritated her even further, and Beth suppressed the slight and sudden urge to just turn around and slam the door right in his face.

( _She might have been disappointed and annoyed and pretty pissed at him, but she wasn't_ that _angry at him._ )

Because despite the fact that he had been rude and ignorant and, in general, just a bit of an asshole; Beth found that she still liked Daryl - a _lot,_ actually - and although he must have at least had some sort of feeling that she wouldn't be too pleased with the fact that he hadn't called her when he said that he would, he had still come all this way to see her.

And, despite herself, Beth couldn't help but think that maybe that counted for something - that maybe him coming here could say more to her than his poor communication skills ever would.

The blonde wasn't quite prepared to drop her stubborn act just yet, but there was a breeze coming into the house from outside and she was scantily clad in her pyjamas, so after a minute of simply looking straight at Daryl, Beth finally let out a low sigh and shuffled backwards, pulled the door open a little wider as she moved. She didn't actually say anything to him as she moved, but the action was invitation enough for him, and Daryl only hesitated for a second before he stepped over the threshold and into the farmhouse.

"You're gonna have to be quiet," Beth said in a low voice as she shut the front door behind them. It was a pointless thing to say, really, because Beth was pretty certain that she had never known Daryl Dixon to be anything but quiet; but still, she wanted the biker to be aware of the fact that they weren't alone, and this seemed like the best way to do it. "My daddy's asleep upstairs."

Instead of verbally responding to her, Daryl just nodded his head once to demonstrate that he understood, that he had heard her; and his deep blue eyes trailed over the framed photographs that were littered across the walls and had been since before her mama passed away. The sight of him looking over them reminded Beth of the first time that Daryl had ever visited the farm house - the time that he was searching for medicine to help Martinez's sick dog - and the memory of that day caused her lips twitch upwards uncontrollably.

Shaking her head in an attempt to snap her drifting mind back into reality, Beth silently scooted her way past Daryl so that their bare arms brushed against each other - not necessarily by accident - and made her way over towards the kitchen door, stepping carefully so that the large slippers didn't fall from her feet. Even if she couldn't actually hear him moving behind her, Beth didn't need to look over her shoulder to know that Daryl was following her lead; and once they were both inside the kitchen, Beth opted to lean against the edge of the sink whilst he closed the door behind them.

For a few seconds afterwards, the air between them seemed to buzz with awkwardness, and there was nothing that Beth hated more than feeling like this around anyone - never mind around _him._ As she struggled over what to do next - whether she should speak, whether she should move, whether she should even do anything - Beth reminded herself that it was Daryl who had made the journey out to the farm; that it was him who had - once again - come to her, that it was him who had wanted to see her and that it was him who had wanted to be here. With that thought in mind, Beth folded her arms across her chest and let out a long, deep breath.

"So," she said, her chin lifting so that she could look Daryl straight in the eyes from where he was stood on the opposite side of the kitchen. Since she hadn't switched on the light when she first entered the room, it was only the light of the full moon from outside that illuminated the kitchen; and it only made Daryl's figure appear darker, and the sight of his broad body standing in front of the kitchen door caused her to feel much smaller than she probably should.

Before she could say anything else - words were on the very tip of her tongue, but her mind hadn't yet processed them; so in all honesty, the blonde hadn't been sure about what it was that she would have said - Daryl spoke up, his voice still husky. "You're pissed at me," he said, the words most certainly not part of a question, but a statement.

Whether or not he had expected her to, Beth was certain that she wouldn't attempt to deny it. His words were somewhat blunt, but his tone was close to being _soft,_ as if he understood exactly why she was annoyed at him. And although there was a strong part of her that wanted to reassure him - that wanted to wrap her arms around his shoulders and smooth back his hair and breathe him in and insist that she would forget it all - Beth fought the urge to do all of that, and instead she let out another sigh; her arms flopping lamely to fall by her sides.

"You didn't call," she responded in a disappointed tone, her fingertips gripping lightly against the counter top behind her. Now that the words had been said out loud so that she couldn't take them back, Beth suddenly felt as though the whole matter seemed childish and stupid and just plain ridiculous; but Daryl had heard what she had said clear as day, and there was no going back for her now.

As she mulled over what it was that she was trying to get across to him, Beth thought to herself that it was particularly telling to her that Daryl hadn't seemed to be necessarily surprised or even irritated by what she had said. If he had known that this was what had been coming for him - having to deal with her being at least mildly annoyed by his actions, or lack of them - then perhaps that was a sign that maybe she wasn't over-reacting after all.

"It's jus'..." Beth began, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth so that her teeth were resting on it for a moment, pulling at some loose skin there before she licked her lips and attempted to start over again. Even in the darkness of the room, Beth's eyes remained locked on to Daryl's as she spoke. "It's not _just_ that you didn't call. 'Cause, I mean - you do this, this whole disappearing act," she said, moving one of her hands so that she could tuck some loose strands of hair behind her ears. "An' that's - that's not what I... I jus' can't _do_ anythin' with that."

Now that she had started to open up to him about the subject - now that the words were flowing out of her mouth with a reasonable enough flow and were also making reasonable enough sense - Beth found that it was close to being impossible for her to stop. "It's not even just that I can't, 'cause I don't _want_ to put up with that sort o' stuff," she said, her tone deadly serious. The more that she said, the more unreadable the expression on Daryl's face seemed to become, but Beth wasn't particularly focused on that. "That's jus' not _me,_ " she said, standing tall so that she was no longer slouched against the sink. "S'not who I _am._ "

Whilst she had been talking, Daryl had moved closer and closer towards her - only inches at a time - but by the time that she was near enough finished with her explanation to him regarding her feelings, he was stood almost directly in front of her. Despite his now close proximity, Beth continued on with what she had been saying, the words falling out of her mouth with a sort of ease and passion that they lacked just minutes before. "An' you can't go 'round throwin' words like _'old lady'_ at me an' not expect me to be annoyed when you jus'... jus'... _run away,_ " she said, her eyes widening and her hands moving around animatedly as she searched for her words. "'Cause that's not - it's not _fair._ "

Regardless of everything that she had said to him by that point - and all of the emotions that she has exposed before him in the darkness of the kitchen - there is still a part of Beth that would like nothing more than for Daryl to pull her close to him, to have her chest pressed against his and his arms wrapped around her; keeping her safe and keeping her close.

But stood before her is _Daryl Dixon,_ and even as the hope just about started to burn up inside of her chest for that scenario (or at least a similar one), Beth had also already started to accept the fact that things would definitely not play out that way. They may have only been a few inches away from one another and he may have made the first move in getting this close to her in the first place, but that still wasn't enough. Beth wanted more; she wanted his body curled around hers, she wanted his lips on her forehead and her cheeks and her lips, she wanted encouragement that things weren't anywhere close to being as hopeless as they currently seemed.

It continued to be quiet between them - the silence seeming to stretch on for miles - and it was only when Beth was on the verge of slumping her shoulders in defeat that Daryl shuffled forward a slight amount more and lifted his large hands so that he could cup her jaw. The intimate action immediately caught her off guard, and Beth remained frozen still whilst his eyes danced over all of her facial features, lingering on the scar that cut across her cheek whilst his thumb brushed against it.

After what felt as though it could have easily been hours, Daryl's eyes lifted up so that he was looking straight into Beth's, and the blonde couldn't resist speaking once again despite the fact that her breath had practically caught in her throat. "You're not bein' fair," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, and Daryl let a breath through his nose - the warmth of it a gentle pressure on her face - before he nodded his head.

"I know," he murmured back to her, his own voice low and hushed, too. His thumb traced over the scar on her cheek once again and this time, Beth couldn't hold in her small gasp. "Trust me, girl. I know."

* * *

 **OKAY, so maybe I am a little mean for ending this chapter there, but it felt as though that was quite a nice point to end this on. It was such an intimate moment between them (or at least, I hope it seemed that way for you, too) and I thought that it would be nicer to leave it to your imaginations what happened after that instead of writing it and not quite doing the moment the justice it deserved.**

 **Also, in this particular fic I think that it would be OOC for Beth to be overly understanding/accepting/forgiving of Daryl's behaviour towards her. Given everything that she has been through/is continuing to go through, I can't imagine that she would just let his poor communication skills slide for all that long. I hope that nobody thinks that she's being perhaps too harsh on him for not calling her, because after all, it's more of the bigger picture - it's not just that he didn't call, it's that he does something that can be considered as sweet or romantic and perhaps going somewhere maybe even serious with their relationship... and then he literally just disappears off the face of the earth until he thinks that he can face her again.**

 **So yeah. Don't hate me too much for her being a bit stern with him - I just think that given the experiences that she's had in this universe, that's the way she would deal with it instead of just letting him walk all over her.**

 **Anyway, aside from that - as always, thank you SO much for reading and please let me know what you think of this chapter.**


	20. Chapter 20

**Sorry that this seemed to take forever. I swear I'm not usually this bad at updating. I could bore you with stories about my uni assignments and work and generally having other commitments but more than anything, I just really struggled with this chapter. I've definitely mentioned before that I find it difficult to write from Daryl's POV, and this was a huge challenge for me, but I was determined to get it out to you. So apologies in advance if it's pretty bad - I tried, OK?! And I'm sick of re-reading it and cutting and editing and stuff.**

 **Just take it!**

 **But yeah - thank you for all of your lovely comments on the last chapter, too. I really appreciate all of the support that I get from you all, it means a lot.**

 **There are also some hints in here as to what drama is coming in the next few chapters, so kudos to you if you manage to find them/work them out.**

* * *

After allowing weeks to pass by where he had constantly denied himself the small pleasure of listening to the sound of her melodic voice, Daryl finally gave into the temptation of Beth Greene and sat himself down at a small, round table that was located right in the far back corner of the coffee shop. It would probably never be for him to sit right at the front centre of the crowd or right next to the stage, but this was something that he could manage, something that he could do without feeling as though he shouldn't be there.

As he placed the plain white mug that was filled to the brim with hot chocolate (ever since Beth had introduced him to the drink that very first night that he had visited the farm, Daryl was certain within himself that she had caused an addiction) onto the surface of the table in front of him, the biker took a few seconds to look around; finding the little store to be pretty crowded considering the fact that it was gone eight o'clock in the evening.

The realisation that so many people who lived in this tiny town had gone out of their way to come down and listen to Beth Greene sing caused Daryl's lips to twitch upwards in the smallest of smiles; and even thought it was barely noticeable to anyone else, it was still there all the same, and it seemed to be genuinely impossible for him to fight it.

After several minutes of absolutely nothing happening, Beth then suddenly moved onto the small stage that had been organised for her at the opposite end of the coffee shop - right up next to the counter - and began to adjust the microphone so that it was in line with where she had perched herself on a dark wooden stool in the centre of the stage.

The blonde wore a soft yellow dress that revealed so much of the creamy skin of her legs - legs that he had touched with his very own fingertips, legs that he had grabbed and yanked at with his clumsy hands, legs that he had kissed and licked and sucked on with his burning mouth - and a cardigan that covered her arms. Beth had allowed her hair to fall free in loose, gentle waves down her shoulders and her back; and all that she carried on stage with her was her guitar, which had been purposely left to rest proudly in her lap.

It was as Beth started strumming mindlessly on her guitar and talking into the microphone - an introduction, even though she had to know that everyone was here because they knew who she was, as well as a quick thank you to everyone for taking the time out of their day to come down to listen to her - that the town's sheriff walked through the door, and the man immediately made a beeline towards where Daryl was sat alone. Although there was no cup of coffee in the man's hands (which slightly annoyed Daryl, because he knew that the coffee shop paid Beth a small amount to sing there because she encourages more people to come down, which means more business for the owner), the youngest Dixon brother had absolutely no doubt in his mind that as soon as Rick Grimes sat his ass down in the empty seat beside him, he definitely had no plans to leave him be any time soon.

The last time that he had been in this store - and the last time that he had listened to her sing - Daryl hadn't let his gaze linger on her for too long. But things had drastically changed since that first occasion (in more or less every way possible), so he greedily stared at where she was sat without any hesitation in his gaze; internally reminding himself that he actually kind of had a _right_ to look at her like this now.

Things were different.

 _"I told him that you were my old lady,"_ he had told her all those weeks before.

 _"Means that you're mine."_

Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl watched as Rick slowly removed the dusty brown hat from on top of his head and then placed it down on the table besides the mug. In all truthfulness, Daryl had never really been all that fond of the uniform that the sheriff had to wear every day - he always figured to himself that it looked kind of dusty and a little bit dirty, too - but he could only imagine that cops thought something similar about the sort of stuff that the guys in the club wore, and he knew for a fact that there were plenty of people in town (women, mostly) who were fans of the sheriff's uniform.

Especially when it was Rick Grimes who was wearing it.

 _"And I never saw you coming / And I'll never be the same"_

After he had cleared his throat and folded his arms across his chest, Rick finally spoke up, his own eyes following Daryl's to look over at where Beth was sat on the stage, singing softly into the microphone. She was good, and he had already known that from the first time that he had heard her; but again, Daryl remembered that things were much different between the two of them now, and he had never really allowed himself the chance to accept that she was actually a real good singer the last time that he had accidentally stumbled across her here.

"So," Rick said as he cocked his head to one side, his clear blue eyes narrowed back in Daryl's direction. "'S been a while."

With a shrug of his shoulders, Daryl let out a stunted _"mmm_ ", unable to be anything but distracted by the way that Beth's light blue eyes seemed to constantly flicker back to his whilst she sang. Even from where he was sat in the very back corner of the store - which seemed to be incredibly far away from the stage that she sat at - Daryl could tell that she was blushing every time that she caught him staring at her. The stained colour of light pink on her cheeks looked almost as delicious as the small, soft smile did on her; and despite the fact that he probably should pay a bit more attention to what Rick was trying to talk to him about, Daryl found that he could hardly resist the urge to concentrate on anything but her.

With a lick of his chapped lips, Rick shuffled slightly closer towards Daryl, his tone more hushed now. "Look," the sheriff said, his eyes downcast at the table as he spoke. "I'm not gonna lie to you 'bout all this shit with Merle. Things - they ain't lookin' all too good -"

Growing frustrated at the topic of conversation - especially when he had wanted to come here to listen to Beth sing, not to discuss how things were going with his brother - Daryl quickly turned his head so that he could look straight at the sheriff, his impatience with the man - and, more in general, the entire situation that his older brother was in - clear in the hard line of his clenched jaw and his narrowed eyes. After Shane Walsh - Rick's deputy - had re-arrested Merle (and had everything finalised to keep him locked up without any chance of bail), Daryl was in no position to trust anyone; especially not someone who was dressed in a cop uniform.

"Why are you here, _sheriff_?" he asked through gritted teeth. "This your way of tellin' me that my brother ain't gettin' out any time soon?"

"'s my way of tellin' you that I _don't know,"_ the other man said, his bright blue eyes widening slightly as he spoke to Daryl, his voice hushed so that it was barely above a whisper. As he took a pause, Rick looked around him as if to check that nobody who was sat nearby was focused on what the two men were talking about; and once he was satisfied, he turned back to face Daryl once again. "I don't know what's goin' on 'cause Shane's gone about it behind my back, an' I don't wanna give you - or any of your guys - some kinda false hope about this whole thing."

As he shook his head from side to side, Daryl let out a scoff as he grabbed the handle of the mug on the table in front of him and brought it up to his lips. "This whole damn thing is takin' way too fuckin' long, anyhow," the youngest Dixon said before as he took a long gulp of the scalding liquid, revelling in the way that it scorched his throat. "Jus' ain't right. An' we ain't _stupid,_ Grimes - we all know that your guy has gone an' royally fucked Merle over."

 _"So you were never a saint/ And I loved in shades of wrong"_

Between them, things are silent for a beat; but despite the slightly aggressive tone of Daryl's voice, Rick smirked before he responded, his eyes flickering over Daryl's facial features before he spoke. "You not likin' bein' the actin' president or somethin'?" he asked, sarcasm thick in his tone, and Daryl had to fight with himself to battle the urge to roll his eyes.

 _"But this love is brave and wild"_

Resting himself so that his back was pressed straight up against the frame of the chair, Rick's smirk grew wider. "I would'a thought that the whole _'leadership'_ thing was right up your alley."

"Fuck off, Grimes."

* * *

As it so happened, Daryl Dixon had never been too brilliant when it came to mingling with unfamiliar people (and although he was anything but fond of admitting it, it didn't take a genius to work out the fact that he had pretty poor social skills); so when Beth had finished up on stage after a good forty five minutes or so of playing her songs - most of them being covers, but she had played some of her own original songs, too - Daryl felt awkward as hell as he lingered at the back end of the coffee shop.

Whilst he waited for Beth to finish up - first he had watched as she had packed away her guitar into its case, then she had helped to clean up the stage, and now she was chatting to some of the other people who had loitered around to speak with her - Daryl was completely unsure as to what to do with himself, and although Grimes annoyed the hell out of him the majority of the time, the youngest Dixon brother found himself wishing that the sheriff wouldn't have had to get going so soon after Beth's set had finished.

 _"Lori's gonna be pissed if I'm out any later,"_ he had said just before he left. _"Tell Beth that I thought she sang great - 'specially that last song."_

As he chewed at the inside of his cheek whilst he waited for her to finally be ready, Daryl wondered about what the blonde would say to him about his appearance tonight and what she would want to do now. No arrangement had been made between the two of them because Daryl's visit to the coffee shop had been mostly unplanned - at least he was pretty confident that Beth hadn't been expecting him to show up, and even Daryl himself had been 50/50 about the whole thing.

There had been no discussion about it with her, no suggestion or even invitation - in fact, Daryl had only been aware that she was playing because since he had stepped us as acting president whilst Merle was locked up, he'd had one of the prospect's keeping an eye on Beth whenever he wasn't around to do so, and the guy - Noah - had informed him that she had been putting up flyers around town to advertise that she would be performing.

It had been a mere coincidence that Rick had come to listen to her sing, too, but it wasn't necessarily something that Daryl hadn't been expecting. After all, it was where the sheriff had arranged for them to meet just a few months before, and despite everything else, Rick was a nice guy - of _course_ he would come down and show his face at Beth's performance.

But even though his appearance hadn't been something that had been organised, Beth had seemed pretty happy to see him there, and as she talked and smiled and laughed with the people who had waited around to speak with her, Daryl had noted that she kept glancing over at him every couple of seconds as if to make sure that he hadn't slipped away somewhere without her knowing. It wasn't like he would do - after all, he'd stayed here throughout her whole set and he had waited around this long afterwards - but he supposed that he had disappeared the last time that he came here, so in a way he could hardly blame her for thinking that he might do the same this time around.

Once everyone finally let her be, Beth didn't waste any more time in waiting around and instead made her way straight over towards where Daryl had been waiting. The blonde lugged her big black guitar case with her whilst she walked, and as she approached, Daryl placed the empty mug that he had been holding in his hands back down onto the surface of the table and moved so that he was now stood up, nodding his head at her in greeting.

"Hey," she said, the whites of her teeth showing as she beamed up at him, the bright smiled meeting her eyes. "I wasn't expectin' to see you here tonight."

Shrugging, Daryl glanced around the coffee shop - that was quickly becoming quieter and quieter - before he looked back down at her, and the biker immediately noticed that she was wearing make-up now that she was this close to him. It wasn't necessarily what he would consider to be a lot - in fact, it was anything but, if he was being honest with himself - but it was still a lot for her, especially when he was so used to seeing her fresh-faced. For a moment, Daryl couldn't help but be anything except taken aback about how much older it made her look. It didn't necessarily add any years to her actual age, but Beth sure as hell looked more like the almost twenty-one year old _woman_ that she was now.

At her statement, there was an instinctual response that bubbled inside of him to excuse himself; to cover up the genuine intentions and reason that he had for being there and to blurt out any old comment to brush her off - something like _Rick wanted to speak to me_ or _I was just stopping by and didn't know that you would be here_ \- but Daryl swallowed down the words before they could burst out of his mouth and reminded himself that he didn't have to lie to her.

Not now.

Not any more.

"Came to hear you sing," he said, his eyes alert as Beth switched the case over in her hands. It wasn't as though it was stupidly obvious that the blonde was struggling with the weight of it in her arms, but Daryl just _knew_ that she was; so without mentioning anything about it - what would he say, anyway? - he reached out one of his own large hands and took the case from her.

For a split second, Beth looked to be genuinely caught off guard by the action, her eyes wider than usual as Daryl moved it with ease and held it by his side with a lot less effort than it had taken for Beth to do the same. The gesture had seemed to throw her, but she quickly recovered from her surprise, blinking her eyes open and closed several times and threw him a dazzling smile.

"You sounded real good," Daryl commented then, suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that he needed to say _something_ to her. It was stupid, really, because he had never been anywhere close to being good with words, but he was still determined to _try -_ at least with _her -_ although he had absolutely no idea why he felt that way.

In all honesty, Daryl knew that he could - and should - have probably thought much more about it before she had approached him and he should have figured out something better to say to her; but Beth broke into a smile so bright and so wide that anyone who was watching would have thought that he had just said the most wonderful thing in the world to her.

"Thank you," Beth responded, her cheeks quickly turning a deep shade of red as she tucked some of her hair behind both of her ears. For a girl who seemed to be so confident and comfortable around him, there were times like these when she seemed so quite and nervous and unsure, and although it was something that Daryl could relate to, it confused the hell out of him as to why on earth she would be that way. "An' thank you for comin' here tonight, Daryl," she said, looking straight up at him, the smile on her face softer now. "It means a lot. To me."

Uncertain of where to go from there, Daryl shrugged his shoulders again and ducked his head so that he was looking down at the black guitar case in his hand. "Ain't nothin'," he remarked, moving his free hand to rub at the hot skin at the back of his neck. "Was thinkin' that maybe we could get outta here," he commented, tilting his head upwards so that he was looking at her with squinted eyes. "If you wan'."

As the blonde bit down on her lower lip as she smiled, Daryl noticed that she looked excited; and he figured that that had to at least count for something. "Yeah?" she asked, a slight twinkle in her eyes as she gazed up at him, the smile still spread across her face.

The smile on his own lips was much smaller than hers - probably barely even noticeable to anyone else who was looking their way - but it was there all the same, and he nodded his head whilst he continued to look directly down at Beth. "Yeah."

* * *

Whilst Daryl started up the engine to the faded red truck that he had driven to the coffee shop - the vehicle technically belonged to his brother, but since his brother wasn't here right now, he had seen no harm in borrowing it for the evening - Beth hopped into the passenger side, and Daryl noted the way that she visibly jumped at the sound the door made as it closed behind her.

It was little things like the way that the blonde seemed to panic - all based on instinct - for just a split of a second before she regained her composure that made Daryl's chest ache and roar with fire at the same time. No matter what she said to him or how much she tried to make him feel better about what had happened, Daryl knew that it was on his head. He should have looked after her better, should have been more protective of her, should have never even got her involved in all of this mess in the first place -

"So," Beth said as she pulled her seat belt over her body, the smile on her face small but still bright as she looked over to where Daryl was sat in the driver's seat. He hadn't realised that he had been absently staring at her whilst she had settled into the seat, and the youngest Dixon brother blinked several times to snap himself back into reality. "Where are we goin'?"

"Dunno," he responded quickly from beside her, feeling all sorts of foolish for being caught staring at her like a madman and for not having anything actually planned. He had more or less asked for her to come somewhere with him, sure, but that was the problem: he didn't know where _somewhere_ was. "Didn't think much 'bout that," Daryl admitted, an almost nervous chuckle escaping his lips as his deep blue eyes darted around the vehicle. "Figure I could take you back home, if you wan'."

At his suggestion, Beth quickly pushed herself firmly back on her chair and snapped her head towards him, her expression serious and almost hard at first, but then she pouted - as in literally _pouted,_ her bottom lip pushed out all the way and everything. The expression was exaggerated and playful, but Daryl knew before Beth even opened her mouth to respond to his idea that she was less than keen on the idea of him taking her back to the farm.

"Home?" she asked, the slightest hint of a whine in her voice. "That's so _borin'_."

Overcome with a very sudden urge to hang his head and laugh to himself, Daryl put the truck into reverse and started to move out of the bay that it had been parked in, grateful for the distraction which meant that he didn't have to continue to look right at Beth. "Borin', huh?" he asked with a scoff, attempting to fight a smile for as long as he possibly could. "So where do you _wanna_ go?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl noticed Beth shrug before she turned her attention to look out of the window. "Well," she said, "why don't we just go back to your place?"

This time, it was impossible to fight the smirk, but Daryl tried his best to restrain it so that she wouldn't notice. "My place?" he asked, trying to sound surprised at the suggestion. It wasn't as though he had been confident that Beth would want to go back home with him, but Daryl _had_ been hoping that she would want to stay in his company for a little while longer than he had suggested to her.

"So long as that's alright with you," Beth suddenly added, the words hurrying from her mouth as she looked back over at him once again, seeming to be unsure of herself.

With a nod of his head, Daryl glanced over at her before he looked back at the road ahead of him, driving in the opposite direction of the Greene farm. "Yeah," he said, clearing his throat. "'Course it is."

.

.

.

Given the fact that it was quite late on in the evening, there was absolutely no traffic on the roads to be seen or heard of (not that there was ever that much of it in the first place, considering the fact that it was such a small town), it didn't take all that long before he had pulled the truck into the lot next to the apartment block. Despite the fact that Beth had seemed to be slightly nervous when she had suggested the possibility of heading back to his apartment, now that they were actually here, she seemed to be filled with confidence as she bounced out of the truck and closed the door behind her, not even hesitating as she made her way over towards the staircase that led them up towards the third floor.

"You hungry?" Daryl asked over his shoulder as he unlocked the front door of his modern home, making his way straight into the kitchen and towards the refrigerator. He could hear the sound of Beth's light footsteps as she followed behind him, but he immediately regretted asking the question as soon as he saw the lack of contents inside of the fridge. Feeling bashful, he quickly snapped his head around so that he could face her. "Hope you ain't."

A tiny giggle escaped her mouth and Beth shook her head from side to side whilst she absently ran one of her fingers over the surface of her black guitar case. In his rush to grab something to eat for her, Daryl had placed it down without much thought on one of the wooden kitchen chairs, and Beth's nails were gliding back and forth over it whilst she looked straight at him. "I'm not," she said, and even though he couldn't be sure whether or not the girl was being honest with him, Daryl supposed that he didn't have much choice but to accept it.

Besides, it wasn't like there was any food in for him to feed to her.

 _Jackass._

All of a sudden, Daryl felt _awkward;_ and he had never been one for small talk - never cared for it, never needed it, never been interested in even starting it - but Beth was different to any other person who he had ever had over for company, and he knew deep down that he had to make an effort somehow. As he cleared his throat, Daryl rubbed at the back of his neck before he opened his mouth, thinking to himself that he could at least try.

(And if it failed, he sure as hell wouldn't bother again.)

"You got class tomorrow?" he asked, and Beth shook her head no.

"You got work?" she countered, the smallest of smiles playing on her lips as she continued to brush her fingers over the guitar case.

Despite himself, Daryl smirked, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly over towards her. "'m my own boss," he said, leaning his hip against the kitchen counter top. "'s'up to me whether I got work or not."

He realised then that he most likely sounded arrogant and over-confident, but he was the sort of man who was anything of the sort - in fact, he had just been telling the truth. Since he owned the garage - 50/50 with his older brother - it was up to him whether or not he went in. There was always vehicles to work on if he did, and the guys would probably get a lot more done with him there (especially the younger ones, who had a tendency to slack off if they could afford to), but it wasn't as though he was obligated to, wasn't as though anyone would be up his ass if he didn't go in.

Most weeks, he ended up working at least six days anyway - sometimes even seven - so he supposed having a day off wouldn't be such a bad thing.

"Oh, really?" Beth asked, the smile growing wider as she pushed herself upright so that she was no longer leaning over the wooden chair. "Guess that means you're all mine, huh, Mister Dixon?"

He couldn't help the smirk that played at his lips as he cocked a brow right back at her. "Whatever you say, girl," he said, shaking his head as she laughed to herself.

.

.

.

When it came to the topic of his childhood, most of Daryl's early memories were anything but pleasant; especially when it came to the matter of where he had grown up. First, it was the house, but then his ma had burned that down so that nothing of it remained, and then there was the one-bedroomed trailer that his pa managed to get his hands on. The thought of both places brought many images to mind - flashes of thin walls that were littered with holes that his father's fists had put there, of dirty floors that had broken glass scattered across it, of unwashed dishes piled up against every surface, and cigarette buds _everywhere._

Still, for one reason or another, Daryl Dixon had never liked mess. It wasn't as though he considered himself to be anything even remotely close to a neat freak - hell, how could he be, given the way that he was raised and the fact that he worked as a _mechanic,_ of all things - but he liked things to be tidy and organised. Since he worked in a garage for a living, it wasn't as though _he_ could always be clean, and his skin was (more often than not) layered in grime and dirt and oil and grease; but Daryl still made sure that his space was as close to perfect as it could be.

But even so, the youngest Dixon brother wasn't over the top about it; instead, he just had some basic rules for himself that were easy enough to follow. His clean clothes - not that there were all that many of them to begin with, because he couldn't give two hoots about what was fashionable and was more bothered about whether or not he had _something_ to wear - stayed hung up in the dresser or folded pretty neatly in one of his drawers. Any of his dirty laundry was put into the wash basket that was located in the corner of his bedroom, and he would wash it whenever he got a free minute. After he had eaten a meal or had something to drink, the used pots went straight into the sink and were washed as soon as they possibly could be.

And Daryl never smoked in the apartment.

This sort of unspoken code was something that Daryl lived his day to day life by, but it was also something that he had never paid that much attention to. After all, it was just routine at this point; just something that he did without much thought behind the actions, and that was all that there was to it. But now that he had Beth Greene inviting herself round to his place more and more often, Daryl was silently glad for the fact that he had lived this way since he had first moved out. He couldn't imagine his brother ever bothering to tidy up for a visitor - not even for a girl that he really liked - and it just meant that Daryl had one less thing to worry about when it came to being around Beth.

"You sure you wanna stay here?" Daryl asked as he rummaged around in one of the drawers, his hands grabbing at a plain black tee shirt that had been folded up before he passed it over to her. As Beth's fingers brushed against his own whilst she took the garment from him, Daryl nudged the drawer to a close.

And it wasn't as though he didn't want her to stay, because of _course_ he did, but Daryl also never wanted to pressure this girl into do anything that she didn't want to. After everything that he had seen her go through in the last few months combined with everything that he had heard she'd been through before he had even walked into her life, Daryl knew that Beth was strong; but it didn't mean that she wasn't susceptible to feeling like she had to do something. "Could still take you back home if you wanted me to," he reminded her, his eyes glued to hers to gauge her reaction.

But at his words, Beth just shook her head quickly - almost insistently. The blonde ran her fingertips over the material of the tee that was now in her hands before she placed it carefully onto the end of the bed behind her, making sure that it didn't crease as she did so. "No," she told him, a soft, gentle smile on her lips as she turned back round to face him. As she moved, Beth straightened up her back and edged slightly closer towards Daryl. "I wanna be here."

Before the biker could even have a moment to blink, Beth had somehow managed to manoeuvre the yellow sun dress that she had been wearing over head and left it to fall down on the laminate floor without so much as a second glance at it, leaving her body completely bare - except for the pink lace material of her underwear - as she stood before him. The action was as bold as it was unexpected, and although he definitely didn't mean to stare at her, Daryl was too shocked and taken aback at her movement that he couldn't do anything but.

The smile on her face grew wider along with the pink blush that crept to the apples of her cheeks, and Beth slowly moved herself closer to where his body remained frozen in place. "So long as you don't mind me stayin'," she breathed out as she edged nearer, and Daryl had to blink several times to snap himself out of the trance that she had put him under.

Looking up, the biker locked eyes with her own, using all of his willpower to not allow his gaze to roam over the exposed porcelain skin of her bare chest and waist. Visibly swallowing as she inched towards him until she was close enough so that their toes were almost touching - close enough so that he could easily move one of his hands upwards and press it over the swell of her breast, close enough so that he could dip his head down and close his mouth over her own, close enough so that he could practically smell her arousal through her underwear - Daryl shook his head back and forth, the movement so slight that it was most likely barely even noticeable.

"Don't mind," he rasped to her, his voice thick and his throat dry. "Girl, you _know_ I don't."

Her hands - much more tentative than she had been moments before - reached out to touch him over his tee shirt, and Daryl didn't flinch or shy away from her soft, careful fingers. Instead, he inhaled a deep breath through his nostrils and held eye contact with her as she began to stroke the material - and his abdomen - with her thumbs, her gaze lazily wandering from his eyes to his lips and then back to his eyes once more.

Throughout his life, Daryl Dixon had always considered himself at being pretty good at reading signs that were put in front of him - and hell, even if he wasn't an observant guy, Beth was literally stood in front of him wearing _nothing but a tiny pair of panties._ In his mind, Daryl supposed that she couldn't really be making her intentions of her desires any more clear to him if she tried, not even if she wanted to.

Well, he supposed that she could have removed the panties, too.

Without rushing his own movement - after all, she had practically crept towards him as though he would get spooked if she moved too quickly - Daryl edged his head down until he could finally reach her level, his eyes mimicking the movement of her own so that he constantly flickered between looking at her plump lips and her light blue eyes. The move towards her was almost agonizingly slow, but Daryl had to be sure within himself that this was definitely something that Beth wanted; and the sight of her trailing her tongue over her lips as he approached gave him all of the confidence that he needed to take the bait and press himself against her.

It wasn't particularly passionate at first - more of a quick peck on the lips, really - and Daryl pulled back afterwards, leaving an inch or two of air between them before he repeated the action once against. After the third of fourth time of him doing this, Beth seemed to have had enough and quickly grew impatient; and before he had even realised what it was that she was doing, her hands had moved away from his tee and had flown up to his cheeks so that she was cupping both sides of his jaw with her palms, effectively pulling him in closer to her.

From then on, the kiss just seemed to grow in heat and intensity, and it wasn't long before his tongue was slipping into the wet space of her mouth. The blonde moaned appreciatively as his large hands began to wander from where they had been dangling somewhat awkwardly by his sides, and Daryl began to palm at the flesh of her ass before he started to walk them backwards towards the bed.

Almost as if she was encouraged by his movement, Beth moved her hands down from his face so that she could fight against his leather vest, and Daryl reluctantly broke his grip away from her so that he could shrug it off. The vest was thrown carelessly onto the floor and was left to find company with Beth's dress, and no sooner had he discarded of it was Beth pulling at the hem of his tee shirt, silently egging him on to be rid of the rest of his clothes.

Daryl didn't put up any fight or show any sign of resistance, though, and it was simply a matter of seconds before the tee shirt was on the floor with the rest of their clothes. As the two of them were pushed together onto the bed - Beth with her back pressed against the clean white sheets of it and Daryl with his hands on either side of her head, his weight mostly hovering above her slender body so that he didn't crush her - he found that he somehow lost himself in all of her, and even the feel of her small hands exploring the skin of his scarred back didn't make him flinch like it probably should have done.

That was a conversation for another day.

Maybe.

Beneath him, Beth gasped out his name, and the sound caught Daryl's attention immediately. He didn't waste a second before he returned to kissing her once more, his tongue lapping at the inside of her mouth whilst his hips rocked against her core, grinding himself against her through the material of his jeans. The movement had Beth whimpering into their kiss, and Daryl squeezed his eyes tightly shut as her hands moved from where they had previously been travelling up and down the length of his muscular back to the front of his jeans.

For a moment, the blonde brushed her palm over the hard length of him, but then she moved her attention towards his belt. She fumbled with it for a couple of seconds before she finally managed to unbuckle it, and she smiled - clearly pleased with herself - as she shoved the denim down his thighs. The material was stubborn and was practically glued to his skin, and even as she used the balls of her feet to try and push the jeans away from him, there was only so much that she could actually do before Daryl had to take over from her ministrations and kick his pants down the length of his legs so that they too fell to the floor, leaving him wearing nothing but his boxer shorts.

 _Fuck._ He cursed as he pressed himself against her once more, and the actual realisation that all that remained as a barrier between the two of them was their underwear had his cock twitch almost painfully. There was nothing that he wanted to do more than rip the pretty lace from her body and shove himself into her in one smooth motion, but even his lust-filled state, Daryl wasn't stupid enough to think that anything between them would actually ever happen like that.

Well, maybe not the first time, anyway.

"Want you, girl," Daryl panted against her mouth as she placed the palms of her hands on either side of his shoulders. From there, she pushed gently, silently encouraging him to roll over on the mattress so that she could straddle him. Completely lost in the moment, Daryl moved with her; groaning quietly as she settled herself directly on top of him. " _Shit,_ Beth. Want you so fuckin' bad."

The blonde responded to his rasped words with an appreciative gasp and a roll of her hips, and Daryl instinctively squeezed his deep blue eyes tightly shut at the sensation that the friction created. The biker only re-opened his eyes when he realised that Beth had re-positioned herself so that she was no longer straddling his hips, and he lazily blinked down at her several times until his brain caught up with what he was seeing before him and he processed what it was that she was about to do.

There were words in his mouth - words like _you don't have to do that_ and _Beth, stop_ and _it's okay, really_ and _get back up here, girl -_ but none of them seemed to be able to slip past his lips, and as she ran her fingernails over the hem of his boxer shorts, all that Daryl seemed to be able to do was raise his hips slightly from the bed. It was as though his body had a mind of its own, and even though he really did want to reassure her that this wasn't necessary, he was too far gone to be able to stop her, too excited to do anything but hiss loudly when her hand wrapped around the base of him for the first time.

He had imagined this moment far too many times, but the actual feeling of her swollen lips kissing at the head of his cock was better than anything that he had ever thought could be possible. It wasn't as though he was a virgin to oral, but he had never felt anything like this; had never been this worked up or excited in his life, had never wanted anything as bad as he wanted Beth Greene's mouth wrapped around him.

And she got there, eventually. As it so happened, he wasn't fond of speculating whether or not she had done anything like this before; and although she seemed nervous and uncertain at first - as she placed gentle kisses and little licks to the tip of him - she quickly picked up the pace and grew in confidence before him, and it didn't seem as though it took all that long before she really had mastered the trick of it. Daryl tried to keep his eyes open for as long as he possibly could so that he could watch her as she took him as far into her mouth as she possibly could, so that he could watch her as she swirled her tongue around him, so that he could watch her as she bobbed her head up and down and up and down and -

In the end, he had to close his eyes to keep himself from blowing his load straight away. But when one of her hands moved to the base of his cock - to pump him up and down whilst she sucked and licked at the head of him once more - he was certain that he couldn't last another minute. And then when one of her hands moved to cup his balls, he knew that he was fucked.

Her name fell from his lips along with a string of curse words at the feeling, and it just seemed to spur her on even more because she upped the tempo and the pressure of it all without missing a single beat, and the sound of her slurping and sucking along with all of the other sensations caused his legs to tremble something awful. Never in his life had Daryl felt anywhere close to this aroused, and his hands tangled in the blonde locks of her hair as he guided her head, encouraging her to move faster and faster.

He was so close - so, _so_ close - and she felt so good with her mouth and her hands all over him. When she tightly sucked on his cock as he continued to push and pull on her hair, Daryl finally caved in and released himself onto her tongue and her teeth, and he groaned with pleasure as he came into her mouth. Beth only stuttered for a second before she swallowed him down as he pulsed his cum down her throat, and although the last thing that he wanted was to leave her disappointed and horny on her own, Daryl's head fell backwards onto one of his pillows from where he had jolted when he came and he heaved in a deep breath, finding himself to be well and truly spent.

Daryl didn't want to fall to sleep, but as his eyelids closed, he knew that was exactly where his head was going. The last thing that he was able to process was Beth curling herself into the side of his body, and then he was well and truly out of it; his whole body completely relaxed as he had a relaxing, peaceful slumber for the first time in what could have easily been months.

* * *

 **If that sucked extra extra bad, then blame Daryl. I just find it so much easier writing from Beth's POV.**

 **Anyway, thank you for sticking with me and being so patient and so lovely with this! Please let me know what you think :)**


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